Personal Factors That Affect Your Car Insurance
1)Your driving record. Factors such as the number of miles you drive each year, your accident and ticket history go a long way in deciding your insurance rate. For example, if you drive less, your chances of meeting with an accident and making a claim are also less. Insurance companies favor people with clean driving records"" meaning a history free of accidents and moving violations, tickets and DUIs.
2)The car you drive. This includes the make, model and the security and anti-theft devices you have installed on your car. The safer your car, the cheaper it is to insure. Additionally, a certain model of car might be more expensive to insure if the spare parts are hard to find or expensive to replace.
3)Your age, sex and where you live. Younger, less experienced drivers like teenagers tend to have higher insurance rates. Similarly, people in their 30s and 40s might be quoted lesser rates as they are more experienced and have spent more time on the road. Men could get quoted high rates than women, because men are believed to be rasher than women behind the wheel. Geographical location is another big factor car insurance companies take into consideration. For example, a person living in a city with a high crime rate or high accident rate is likely to get quoted a higher rate.
4)Your credit score. Insurance companies prefer to insure people with good credit scores. Someone with a good credit score is looked upon as a responsible person; one who makes payments on time and never misses a payment. If you have a poor credit score, you might get quoted a higher rate. Nobody wants to insure someone who has a history of missing payments.
5)Marital status. Insurance companies are of the opinion that married people tend to pose less of a risk as compared to unmarried people. The reasoning behind this is simple- married people tend to be more cautious when driving. They"re comparatively safer and less risky drivers than the unmarried people. So, married people might actually enjoy lower rates than unmarried people.
6)What you do. Your occupation plays a big role in deciding your insurance rates. If you have a job that requires you to drive a lot and spend lots of miles on the road, you might be looking at getting higher auto insurance rates. Insurance companies essentially want to cover people who spend less time on the road and are at a lesser risk for meeting with an accident.
As they say, knowledge is power. Armed with the right kind of knowledge about the personal factors that affect your car insurance rates, there is no way you can make a wrong decision!