In Canada you are required by law to have insurance on your car if you want to drive it on the road which gives insurance companies a lot of power to charge you lots of money. However there are ways you can lower your rates and make sure you’re not breaking the bank on insurance payments. Here are some of our tricks. 

Talk to the Competition

While insurance companies are at an advantage knowing that you need to negotiate with them if you want to drive, they also have to balance that against their competition. Car insurance is a competitive market and if one company isn’t giving you fair rates then you have every incentive to talk to someone else, and you absolutely should. 

Even if you don’t intend to switch to another company you can come back to your own and tell them what the competition is offering and dare them to match, otherwise you’ll walk away and take your business with you. 

Increase Your Deductibles

Deductibles are the amount of money you’ll pay out of pocket in the event of an accident before insurance covers the rest, so it goes to follow that the higher these deductibles are the cheaper your insurance rates will be. You can typically go as high as $1000 which can give you a serious decrease on your rates, however if you go this route always be prepared to spend that much in the case that that $1000 accident does happen.

Trim Your Coverage

Insurance companies usually group lots of different types of coverage together in one package and generally you don’t actually need all of it. For example if you’re insuring an older car then “collision coverage” probably isn’t a coverage worth having, as repairing the car after a head on collision would be more expensive than the car is actually worth. 

There’s also small things that you can probably get away with axing like “towing coverage” which is nice to have but not strictly necessary if you’re looking to save money. 

Drive Safe

While it might seem obvious it’s still worth a mention. Your driving record is a big factor in determining your insurance rates and if you can keep a spotless record you’ll see that reflected in your insurance rates. While sometimes accidents are unavoidable a reflected history of reckless driving will have the opposite effect on your rates. 

Bundle

Insurance companies like to bundle things together, the more things you’re paying to them the more money they’re making after all. As such insurance companies will often offer special discounts if you bundle together your car and house insurance, or multiple cars under the same roof for example.