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Car Insurance Online

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RateCity
- 2 min read
Car Insurance Online

Getting car insurance online, such as comprehensive car insurance, is relatively straight forward. This is helped by the relative simplicity of the factors involved in securing car insurance compared with calculating certain other types of insurance such as life insurance.

Comprehensive car insurance: Comprehensive car insurance covers damage not only to your vehicle, but another car, up to a market value, which you agree annually with your insurance company. It’s worth noting that comprehensive car insurance also covers registration costs and any optional extras such as alloy wheels, extra airbags and window tinting (depending on provider).

Excess: Before looking for car insurance online, be aware that most comprehensive car insurance policies come with an excess. The excess is the amount that you pay from your own pocket when you make a claim if you’re at fault. If you can prove you didn’t contribute to the bingle, and can identify the culprit to your insurer, you may not be hit with an excess payment.

With some policies, you’ll be able to select the amount of excess against your comprehensive car insurance premium. Moreover, reducing the excess can increase the premium, while a higher excess may lower the premium.

No claim bonus:  When searching for car insurance online,be sure to check the insurer’s noclaim bonus (NCB) policy.  The NCB relates to your insurance claim history, and in particular, how many consecutive years it’s been since your last comprehensive car insurance claim. Generally speaking, the more claim-free years, the bigger the discount against your premium.

Insurers attach excesses and no claim bonuses to your comprehensive car insurance in an attempt to discourage you from making small claims such as the cost of minor paint work. In fact, should you request it, the insurer will calculate the impact that making a small claim will have on your premium and a higher excess generally means a lower premium.

There are additional variables involved in the calculation of a car insurance premium, so it is important to do the research before signing up for car insurance online.

Disclaimer

This article is over two years old, last updated on March 6, 2012. While RateCity makes best efforts to update every important article regularly, the information in this piece may not be as relevant as it once was. Alternatively, please consider checking recent car insurance articles.

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Product database updated 19 Apr, 2024