Cheap car insurance and what the insurance companies don't want you to know

Risk is best analyzed by predictable behavior, and cheap car insurance is easiest to attain when a driver's behavior is predictable. To understand how to better your chances of paying less, it's important to understand how your policy rate is determined by a company.

Someone with multiple speeding tickets is more likely to get into a car accident because their driving suggests carelessness to the insurance company. When a driver has a D.U.I. on his record his insurance premiums increase. A D.U.I. on someone's record shows disregard for their own life as well as others. An old proverb suggests that the best way to look into the future is to examine the past. Insurance companies do just that by looking at your driving record, credit, and place of employment to predict just how much of a liability their clientele is.

The downside of this strategy is that often times drivers rarely mimic the expectations their background suggests to insurance companies. For example, male drivers are quoted at a higher rate than their female peers because gender roles suggest males are more susceptible to take risk than females. On average, this results in an increase in premiums for males. The style and type of car people choose to drive also raises their rate. People with sports cars are considered higher risks than those driving vans. Because of this, often times rates are heavily influenced not by our driving records but by other decisions in our lives.

While many of these factors can be changed over time, most consumers don't know that insurers often look at the entire driving record, beyond even the few years they ask about. Speeding tickets, accidents, or bad decisions with credit never actually come off your record, and all of them will show up for an insurer. Because of this, it's important to make sure that all your decisions are made with this in mind. So make good decisions, make your risk ratio a better average over time with better decisions, and qualify yourself for cheap car insurance.