How does UK car insurance work?




In order to drive a vehicle in the UK you must have motor insurance, third-party insurance is the legal minimum. Nextbase is the UKs leading Dash Cam company and they have partnered with multiple insurance companies to bring you a discount for using a Nextbase Dash Cam. These partnerships are focused on making UK roads a safer place and with more incidents recorded, fault can be identified and dangerous drivers taken off the roads.

Main Types of Car Insurance

Third party – lowest level of cover, protects you against damage that you cause to others and their vehicle. Third party does not cover your own car!
Third party, fire & theft – covers everything included in third party cover, but also covers repair/replacement of your car if it stolen or damaged/destroyed by a fire.
Comprehensive car insurance – widest level of cover, includes all of the above, but also covers damage to your own vehicle.

Now onto the fun part… car insurance premiums

Your premium will be based on factors such as, your personal circumstances, your car itself and your driving history – length of time you have been driving, have you had an accident before, how many miles you drive a year, how many years of no claims you have.
The pain point here is young, inexperienced drivers, often with new cars, their car insurance will be much higher and often too expensive.

There are ways to get cheaper car insurance

These are tips all drivers can use but the young inexperienced drivers sometimes get hit with annual insurance north of £1,000 which isn’t affordable for most. This is due to inexperience but also the fact young drivers have the reputation of being reckless, due to the small percent of them that are, and everyone pays as a result. In 2017 young drivers (17-24) made up only 7% of licensed drivers, but they represented over 20% of drivers killed or seriously injured in crashes*.

1. Buy a Nextbase Dash Cam

Nextbase have teamed up with Sure Thing to offer 25% off insurance for all Nextbase Dash Cam owners. Dash Cams record your journeys, so in the unfortunate event of an incident you have the recorded footage as proof of what happened. You can send this footage to your insurer to prove fault and win the insurance claim. Other insurers such as AXA and Swiftcover also offer discount for Dash Cam users. As more and more insurance companies accept Dash Cam footage as evidence, more are offering discount for using a Dash Cam, and they trust Nextbase above all others. Find out more about how Dash Cams reduce insurance.

2. Shop around

Don’t accept the first quote offered to you, call other insurance companies and see if they can beat the best price you have been offered.

3. Pay annually if you can afford to

You will get two options as to how you pay, annually or monthly. If you pay monthly, you are effectively taking a loan from the insurer and you will be charged interest accordingly. If paying monthly is your only option shop around to see which insurer offers you the best monthly rate with the lowest interest.

4. Pick your job title carefully

When entering your job title, try to be clever with what you select. Definitely don’t lie about your job title but what you do for a living makes a difference to your insurance premium. If there is a selection of title which describe what you do for a living experiment to see if there’s a difference in price.

5. Don’t auto renew your insurance

Back to point 1, shop around and after an additional year no claims your insurance should be cheaper and elsewhere might offer you a better deal.

6. Consider multi-car insurance

Think about multi-car insurance/joining your family on their insurance as some insurers offer discount if there are multiple cars on the same policy. This doesn’t mean the insurance price will be cheaper though, another insurer may offer single car insurance cheaper, it is all relative.

7. Named drivers

Especially if you are a young driver getting insured for the first time, consider putting a lower risk driver as the ‘named’ driver on your policy to bring the overall premium down. Be careful however, the named driver is expected to drive the vehicle the most and the other drivers on the policy are allowed to drive the car but less frequently and less mileage than the named driver.

8. Smaller engine vehicles

The less modifications and smaller the cars engine the cheaper insurance will be. First time drivers should look to buy a 1 litre or 1.2 litres car to have cheaper insurance as they car is less powerful and more manageable as a less experienced driver.

9. Increasing your excess will likely decrease overall insurance cost

If you are willing to pay more if you make a claim, your insurer will offer lower premiums. However, select it carefully as you have to be able to afford to pay the excess.

10. Get a black box

A black box will allow your insurers to track your driving behaviour and adjust your insurance cost accordingly. If you drive at the speed limit and don’t accelerate hard then your insurance will get cheaper and cheaper during your policy but if you speed excessively it will be more expensive.

11. Use price comparison sites

Get multiple quotes at the same time to compare from a variety of insurers.

Find out more about our range of Dash Cams.

 
*Statistics on road casualties can be found here: https://www.brake.org.uk/facts-resources/1653-uk-road-casualties

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