It’s that time of year again, your car’s insurance is due for renewal and you’ve either been sent an email regarding your car insurance, or have received some mail in the post.
insurance is vital and absolutely required for you to drive on the road, without it you are breaking the law, so it’s something that can’t be missed.
You might be stuck not knowing how to renew your car insurance as you’re a new driver and haven’t renewed car insurance before right?
In this blog post – I’m going to tell you how to renew your vehicle insurance so that you can keep on motoring safely.
First…
What Is Car Insurance?
You’re driving down the road, minding your own business and you stop at a traffic light.
A few moments later, another driver pulls up at the stop light behind you and is distracted at the wheel, they end up driving into the rear of your car!
Who pays for this?
This is a common problem with drivers on our road – we all get distracted, and it’s a known fact that there are drivers out there without insurance.
Insurance is needed in order to cover the cost of your car in these car collisions so that you don’t have to pay thousands of pounds.
You pay a monthly or annual payments to the insurance company, you agree at the start to pay the voluntary excess in addition to the compulsory excess.
What’s The Difference Between: Voluntary Excess and Compulsory Excess
- Voluntary Excess is the amount of money that you can choose to pay towards the cost of a car insurance claim, you can choose typically between £0 and a few hundred.
- Compulsory Excess is the amount that you have to pay regardless of the voluntary excess. This is usually a fixed amount that changes with years of driving and can be as much as £500 when you’re a new driver.
Do You Need To Renew Insurance Each Year?
If you’re planning on keeping your car driving on the roads – then yes. You do.
You might find that renewing insurance each year is quite expensive, and you’d be right, but luckily with years of driving and experience, you’ll build up a NCB (No Claims Bonus) making it cheaper.
And you want cheapet insurance – especially at renewal as you’ve got loads of other things to pay out and didn’t even know that is what time to renew your car insurance right?
You’re not alone in this.
When Do You Get Your Car Insurance Renewal?
A common question asked is actually when do you get your renewal, and this will depend on how you pay for you insurance.
Like most people, if you pay annually you should expect to receive your insurance renewal quote approximately:
- 30 days prior to when your car insurance is due to expire.
This means that you’ll need to make sure that it’s renewed in preparation before the end of these 30 days so that you keep your insurance overlapped and are fully insured.
If you’re paying for your insurance monthly, your circumstances might be a little different, but typically you’ll pay a fixed amount every month for 12 months and then you’ll get a renewal quote.
With this you’ll be able to find out how much extra, or less you’ll pay for the following 12 months with that provider.
Insurance Auto Renewal – Is It Worth It?
A little known fact is that by keeping auto renewal turned on, your busy life will completely forget and money will be taken from your account without you knowing..
For some people, this could be a great idea – but more often that not (especially for me) I like to either turn auto renewal off, and pay for car insurance annually.
Why?
It’ll give you more control in the long run. You certainly don’t want large amounts of money being taken from your bank account without you knowing…
In addition – remember this…
Auto renewal will likely mean that you’ll continue to be insured with one insurance year after year, they could be charging you extra.
What do I mean by this?
Put simply, if you’ve got auto renewal switched on, you won’t even notice that extra £50 a year premium that they’re taking from your bank account purely because you’ve been a customer for several years!
Now… let’s say the insurance company gets that £50 year after year from 100 people, that’s thousands right?
Do you see where I’m coming from?
Should I Cancel Auto Renewal?
If you’re a keen person to save money and like to see where your money is going out of your pockets….
Then yes, I’d suggest canceling your car insurance auto renewal with your existing insurance provider today.
This way you’ll be sure to know that you can get into the mindset of looking for new and cheaper car insurance.
It’s worth knowing that insurance renewal can also be referred to as “rolling over”, which is the next section we’ll look at!
My Vehicle Insurance Has Rolled Over – Can I Cancel Auto Renewal?
So…
Your vehicle insurance has already rolled over, meaning, the 30 day threshold has expired and you didn’t manage the renewal manually, and money was taken from your bank account to pay for the following 12 months.
You now might be wondering if you can cancel your auto renewal and car insurance if it’s rolled over.
The simple answer is…
Yes.
You can. Most car insurance companies have a 14 day cooling off period which allows you as the customer to essentially opt out of the contract with that insurer and go somewhere else.
Useful if you’ve been overcharged or are simply looking for cheaper car insurance.
How Early Can You Renew Car Insurance?
Renewing car insurance might feel like a chore for some people, and for others it can be exciting trying to guess how much extra, or less that they will pay.
If you’re looking for cheaper car insurance then you’ll want to insure early, and despite receiving your car insurance renewal quote roughly 30 days before it’s due to expire you don’t want to leave it till it’s too late.
I recommend that you renew your car insurance around 24 days before it’s due to end this way you’ll make sure to get the best possible car insurance price.
You might be asking yourself why these 24 days make a difference?
Put yourself into the eyes of the insurance company and a few other things in life. If you leave something to the last minute you then HAVE to take action with whatever you’ve got there and then.
Insurers know this and will consider you a higher risk person for leaving it too late!
The same can apply for doing it too early, you’d be put into the category of risk and for an insurance company it is all about managing risk right?
How To Get Cheaper Car Insurance For New And Young Drivers
If you’re a new or young driver searching for car insurance, especially when it comes to the renewal date.
I’m going to give you 3 tips that will help you find and get cheaper car insurance:
- Comparison Site – search around on a comparison site, there are many out there and they’ll allow you to compare prices quickly.
- Add A Family Member To Your Policy – another way to lower the cost of your insurance is to add a more experienced family member onto your policy, but don’t add more people than you actually need.
- Dash Cams – getting a dash cam into your car can help dispute claims about who was driving by providing critical video evidence!
