Now we’re really saving on car insurance
The excess
Most policies have a compulsory excess that is fixed, as well as voluntary excess, which you can vary. Changing your voluntary excess level is a way to alter your premium. It means you can choose to take some of the risk by paying a higher percentage of any claim. It is worth trying different excess levels and seeing how it affects your premium. If you are sure that you won't make a claim for less than £500 then have an excess of this level and you will see your premium fall significantly.
Increasing the excess will reduce your premium, but often only by a few pounds.
The no claims bonus
Each year that you don't make a claim on your own policy you get another year's 'no claims bonus', usually up to five years. In the industry, 'no claims' means that your insurer has not had to pay for a claim. Therefore, if you were involved in an incident that was clearly not your fault, but your insurer paid for it and was unable to recover its outgoings from the other party, it still counts as a fault claim on your file. This in turn still affects your no claims bonus. If you stop driving for a while, you can usually keep your bonus up to two years.
The no claims discount can be transferred between insurance companies and after five years of claim-free motoring you could be in line for a massive 75% discount on the premium.
If both you and your spouse have been driving on the same insurance policy, you can usually transfer the bonus to your spouse. Therefore every year you should get both car insurance quotes with you as the bonus holder and then your spouse, and see which comes out top.
If you've just bought a car, but you've been driving a company car for a while, or if you've been a named driver on another person's car, you may still be entitled to a discount. Make sure you inform the insurers when you get an insurance quote.
Don’t choose an insurer because of the size of its no claims bonus; you should compare many insurers and look at the overall cost.
Where you choose to park
Clearly parking your car every night in a locked garage will result in a cheaper car insurance quote than parking on the street. However, what's less well known is that in the 'parking on the driveway' vs. 'private parking' battle, parking on the drive usually wins. Using a car port is no better than parking on the street.