Scraping up a payment for overpriced car insurance can dwindle your checking account and force you to prioritize other expenses. Doing a price comparison is free and is an excellent way to help make ends meet. Many insurers vie for your business, so it’s not easy to compare every company to find the absolute cheapest price
If you have a policy now or are shopping for new coverage, you can follow these tips to find better prices while maintaining coverages. Finding affordable coverage in Martinsburg is not rocket science. West Virginia drivers just need to learn the proper way to shop their coverage around online.
How insurance companies determine rates
It’s important that you understand the different types of things that play a part in calculating car insurance rates. When you know what positively or negatively influences your rates helps enable you to make changes that can help you get big savings.
Shown below are some of the items that factor into your rates.
- Men are more aggressive – Statistics demonstrate women tend to be less risk to insure than men. That doesn’t necessarily mean that men are WORSE drivers than women. Men and women have accidents at a similar rate, but the men cause more damage. Men also statistically have more aggressive citations like DUI and reckless driving. Young males are the most expensive to insure and are penalized with high car insurance rates.
- One company can mean more discounts – Most car insurance companies will give a discount to customers who consolidate policies with them, otherwise known as a multi-policy discount. Even though this discount sounds good, it’s still a good idea to compare other company rates to confirm you are receiving the best rates possible. You may still be able to find a better deal by buying insurance from more than one company.
- Younger drivers pay higher rates – Older insureds are more cautious drivers, tend to cause fewer accidents and get fewer tickets. Teenage drivers have a tendency to be more careless when behind the wheel and because of this, their car insurance rates are much higher.
- High performance equals high price – The make and model of the vehicle you drive makes a huge difference in how high your rates are. The lowest rates are for small economy passenger cars, but the final cost of insurance is determined by many other factors.
- How credit affects car insurance rates – A driver’s credit score is a huge factor in determining what you pay for car insurance. Consumers who have good credit tend to be less risk to insure than those with lower credit ratings. If your credit rating is low, you could be paying less to insure your by improving your credit score.
- You might want pay the small claims yourself – If you frequently file small claims, you can definitely plan on either policy cancellation or increased premiums. Car insurance companies in West Virginia provide lower rates to drivers who file claims infrequently. Your insurance policy is meant to be used in the event of major claims that would cause financial hardship.
- Your car insurance rates can be influenced by your job – Careers like lawyers, social workers and financial analysts are shown to have higher average rates because of high stress levels and long work days. Conversely, occupations such as farmers, engineers and retirees pay the least.
- Higher safety ratings means cheaper insurance – Vehicles with good safety scores can get you lower premiums. These vehicles protect occupants better and lower injury rates means less money paid by your insurance company and lower rates for you.
Comprehensive Car Insurance Comparison in Martinsburg, WV
Getting better car insurance pricing is not rocket science. The only thing you need to do is spend a few minutes comparing rate quotes from different insurance companies. It is quite easy and can be accomplished in several different ways.
- One of the simplest ways consumers can make multiple comparisons is a comparison rater form like this one (opens in new window). This type of form prevents you from having to do separate forms to each individual car insurance company. In just a few minutes this one form gets you coverage quotes instantly.
- A harder way to analyze rates is going to the website for every company you want to comare to request a price quote. For sake of this example, we’ll pretend you want to compare rates from State Farm, Farmers and Geico. To get rate quotes you would need to spend time on each company’s site to enter your coverage information, and that’s why the first method is more popular.
To view a list of companies in Martinsburg, click here.
Which method you use is up to you, but double check that you are using apples-to-apples deductibles and coverage limits for every company. If you compare different deductibles it will be impossible to truly determine the lowest rate in Martinsburg.
Don’t miss out on these money-saving discounts
Companies that sell car insurance don’t always publicize all available discounts in a way that’s easy to find, so we took the time to find both the well known and the harder-to-find discounts you could be receiving. If you aren’t receiving every discount you qualify for, you are paying more than you should be.
- Early Switch Discount – Select companies give a discount for buying a policy prior to your current policy expiration. It’s a savings of about 10%.
- College Student – Children living away from home attending college and do not have a car may be able to be covered for less.
- Accident Free – Drivers who don’t have accidents pay less when compared with frequent claim filers.
- Braking Control Discount – Cars that have steering control and anti-lock brakes can reduce accidents and qualify for as much as a 10% discount.
- Homeowners Discount – Owning a house in Martinsburg may earn you a small savings because owning a home is proof that your finances are in order.
- Lower Rates for Military – Being on active duty in the military could be rewarded with lower premiums.
- Seat Belts Save more than Lives – Buckling up and requiring all passengers to use a seat belt could save 15% off your PIP or medical payments premium.
- Drive Safe and Save – Drivers who don’t get into accidents may save up to 50% more than drivers with accident claims.
- Multi-car Discount – Having more than one vehicle with the same company could earn a price break for each car.
It’s important to note that most of the big mark downs will not be given to the entire cost. Most only cut individual premiums such as liability and collision coverage. So when it seems like all the discounts add up to a free policy, companies wouldn’t make money that way.
For a list of insurance companies with the best car insurance discounts in Martinsburg, follow this link.
More detailed West Virginia car insurance information can be read at the West Virginia Insurance Commission website. Visitors are able to read state legal mandates and laws, learn about insurance regulations, and discover disciplinary actions.
Quote often and quote early
In this article, we presented many ideas to shop for car insurance online. The most important thing to understand is the more times you quote, the better chance you’ll have of finding lower rates. Drivers may discover the best price on car insurance is with a small mutual company. Regional companies may cover specific market segments cheaper than their larger competitors like Allstate or State Farm.
Lower-priced car insurance can be bought online as well as from independent agents in Martinsburg, and you should compare price quotes from both to get a complete price analysis. There are still a few companies who don’t offer you the ability to get quotes online and most of the time these small, regional companies sell through independent agents.