Even if you’re a pro at shopping around, it’s hard to find car insurance for young drivers that’s affordable. The insurance premium is so high that, often, it’s a real barrier to buying a vehicle. Fortunately, there are some tricks to reducing the amount of the premium. Here are 6 tips for reducing insurance premiums for young drivers.
1. Get Insurance as Soon as you Get your Licence
Whether you hold a learner’s permit, a probationary licence, or a class-5 driver’s licence, you should – if possible – take out insurance as soon as you receive the licence. Even if you drive very little or not at all, the premium for an occasional male driver is still high. We therefore recommend getting insured as a second driver or an occasional driver of a parent’s vehicle. With a driver’s licence, insurers grant a driving record of “3.” By taking out this insurance very early, the young driver starts their insurance history. When they finally purchase a vehicle and insure themselves as a principal driver, each year spent accident-free will help them get a lower premium than if they had never been insured.
2. Consolidate Multiple Policies
Like most Québec residents, you probably have multiple insurance contracts: one for your home, another for your car, and possibly one for your motorcycle or ATV. Why not entrust all these policies to the same insurer? Not only will this be easier to manage for you, but your insurer will also let you take advantage of additional discounts if you consolidate all your policies with them.
You can also check with them if it would be worthwhile to insure all your family’s vehicles under the same policy.
3. Opt for a Green Vehicle
Most companies grant an additional discount of up to 20% to drivers of green vehicles (in other words, automobiles with low fuel consumption), electric vehicles, and hybrid cars. However, the vehicle is more expensive to purchase.
4. Change Car Insurance Policies in Advance
Some insurers let you take out the insurance policy several months before the effective date of the contract. This lets the driver end their current contract and avoid cancellation fees while taking advantage of the new insurer’s one-time promotions. The driver is also protected from rate increases that may occur later and increases related to possible accidents during the term.
5. Contact your Insurer Before Buying a Vehicle
Insurance premiums may vary by several hundred dollars per year from one model to the next, even for cars in the same category. Contacting your broker before shopping for a car lets you know the amounts of the insurance premiums in advance, guides you in choosing your vehicle, and helps you stay within your budget.
6. Shop Around
Just because you’re a young driver doesn’t mean that there aren’t companies that are interested in this type of profile and that are more competitive than others. Of course, statistically, young drivers have more accidents than older insured people, but they also have many years of driving and insurance premiums to pay ahead of them. Furthermore, some insurers, who want to avoid shopping around and issuing a new insurance policy each year offer attractive loyalty discounts, aimed at young drivers. It’s all about shopping around for your insurance to get the optimal conditions that motivate the insured to stay with the same company longer. Because Lussier is the largest insurance broker in Quebec, we deal with a large network of insurers, which allows us to meet the needs of all drivers, young and old, at competitive rates.
For a young driver, taking out insurance always costs more than for an experienced driver, even with an average claims rate. But there are several tricks that help new licence holders reduce their bills while building their car insurance history.
