Car insurance is one of those bills that you cannot avoid but it is probably one of the easiest bills you can make savings on with some clever tricks.

Everyone on the road has slightly different circumstances so there’s no one cheapest insurer but following these tips will hopefully mean you meet your cheapest. Also, as always, these tips only really work if you’re in the UK.

Paint yourself in the best light

Car insurance prices are determined based on how likely to make a claim you are, insurers use lots of complicated decision maths and tables to decide who is a higher risk (and therefore pays a higher premium) but there are some ways to reduce your perceived riskiness and save money.

NEVER AUTORENEW! The first one (which starts this whole process off) is to never autorenew! Although insurers aren’t allowed to charge existing customers more than new customers they can still hike up the price so you’re better off switching.

Second driver: Adding a more experienced second driver to your policy means that the average risk of those driving your car is lowered leading to reduced premiums. Obviously put on someone who could realistically drive your car and never put them as the first/named driver if they’re not – that’s illegal.

Job title: Some jobs come with a higher premium attached but there are free tools online (such as this one from MoneySavingExpert.com) which offer similar suggestions that could save you money – remember to be reasonable though, if you’re a policeman you can’t describe yourself as a flower arranger.

Timing is key: Research shows there is an optimal time to buy a car insurance policy – 23 days ahead of renewal – too early and you’re seen as trying too hard, too late and you’re seen as the disorganised sort who could crash.

Pay annually: Paying monthly actually means that the insurer pays your premiums up front and then you repay them with interest (like a loan), so paying in advance is often a lot cheaper. Even using your own finance (such as a 0% credit card) is also a better option.

Compare, compare, compare

Once you’ve found the best way to present yourself to the insurers, you now need to set about getting a quote and the best way to do that is on a comparison site.

The big ones in the UK are MoneySuperMarket, GoCompare, CompareTheMarket and Confused.com but don’t think doing just one is enough to get you the best deal, you need to try at least one to maximise your chance of a big saving.

I did this earlier this week where I tried 5 different comparison sites (those above and one linked to a cashback site) and although the same insurer (and policy) came up trumps each time there was a £50 difference in the quotes from the most expensive site and the cheapest – worth the extra 15 minutes to fill out some more forms, not many jobs pay you that well!

Also, if you want to be extra sure you’ve got the best deal you could check Direct Line too who aren’t on comparison sites.

Cashback?

Once you’ve searched high and low for your cheapest quote now it’s time to see if you can get a nice bonus from a cashback site (such as Quidco or TopCashback). There’s two real ways to go about this:

1. Comparison: Quidco and TopCashback have their own comparisons (using the tech of the big ones mentioned above) and they pay you £35 or £40 respectively for using their site so an easy way to get cashback is getting their cheapest quote (providing it’s not £40 more than other options).

2. Insurers: cashback sites also have special deals with certain insurers where if you go via the site to get your insurance then you’ll be paid a nice sum of cashback. If your cheapest is one of these then that’s even more in the savings, if not, don’t pick an pricier insurer for the sake of cashback.

This does actually work, earlier this week I found £45 in our account on TopCashback from last year’s car insurance switch (yes, you have to do this every year) which was a nice surprise!

Good luck getting a better deal on your car insurance and hopefully you save some money!

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