Car Insurance Companies Give Discounts For Defensive Driving Class
As most car insurance policy holders are aware of, the drivers around here are crazy. Aggressive and swerving little devils, it takes effort to not ram into them, on accident or on purpose (road rage). What many people who have been in accidents realize is that being able to compensate for the stupid driving habits of your fellows on the road can prevent a lot of pain, and not the least a insurance claim.
The way to find out how to avoid these crazy people is to sign up for a defensive driving course. Not only will you learn in one of these courses how to protect yourself on the road, but you will also avoid filing a car insurance claim, as well as being eligible for a insurance discount. Most car insurance companies do give discounts, both for defensive driving courses as well as regular introductory driver’s education courses.
Why take one?
- The National Insurance Safety Council says that almost eighty percent of car insurance accidents happen because the driver messed up in some way. If you learn how to drive defensively and responsibly, you can avoid being part of this statistic.
- If you have a speeding ticket, then you can go to defensive driving class and get it taken off of your driving record. That’s two drops in your Norwalk CA car insurance rates right there.
- The discounts on your Norwalk CA car insurance rates can be pretty high, ranging from five to ten percent. Normally, though, in order to get a discount, you have to take the class voluntarily.
Where do you take one?
- Classes for defensive driving are all over the place, but your Norwalk CA car insurance company will not recognize all of them. To find out which defensive driving school will get you a discount, ask your Norwalk CA car insurance agent or company representative.
- Make sure that the school you go to is authorized by the National Safety Council. You can check their website to make sure that your course is included.
Taking a defensive driving class can even be fun, and if you get your whole family involved, you should see how fast your Norwalk CA car insurance rates will dwindle.
Get Cheap California Student Car Insurance Rates
Are you a starving college student? I understand, and so do many California car insurance companies. Students pay more for car insurance, and so they do what they can to attract these students by offering car insurance discounts to them that will allow them to pay less for their car insurance policy. The catch is that while they may pay less than they would normally pay as drivers under the age of twenty five, they’re often still paying far more than older drivers with similar discounts. This is something you just have to get used to, but the more discounts you take advantage of, the further you close the gap.
A couple of discounts you should consider while in college:
- Good student discount: allows up to a 15% discount from most companies if you have a 3.5 grade point average or above, as well as a B average or above
- Low mileage discount: offers a discount of up to 10% from most companies if you have under forty miles a day or under five thousand a year. You can get this by taking advantage of public transportation or carpooling with friends
There’s another discount that you will have available to you while you lose that first discount, but still haven’t quite recovered from the starving student lifestyle. That’s right, a discount once you’ve finished college. Sentry Insurance will give you a discount if you’ve graduated from college up until the age of thirty. However, 21st Century takes the cake by offering the best car insurance discount for former students. It’s for graduates who have a bachelor’s degree in one of the following fields:
- Physics
- Mathematics
- Aerospace engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Chemistry
- Structural engineering
- Astronomy
- Chemical engineering
- Cybernetics
- Geophysics
- Nuclear engineering
- Planetary systems
- Petroleum engineering
- Meteorology
- Geology
- Civil engineering
- Biochemistry
- Aeronautical engineering
The car insurance discount can be from ten percent to thirty percent if you have any of the above degrees.
How To Get a Car Insurance Discount
Reader question:
I’ve only been driving for a couple of years, and I’m trying to figure out ways to get a good car insurance discount. Any ideas?
Rhonda
Sure, plenty, Rhonda.
Any young person who wants to get a car insurance policy must at first be completely daunted by the high price. For drivers under twenty five, the typical car insurance premium is twice as much as that for older drivers, and even higher if you’re male. Lucky for you, you don’t have that last hurdle, so it will be even easier to get your insurance premium lowered to an amount that you can stomach.
I expect that you only took your driver’s education course a few years ago. You might not have, as most states allow drivers to get their license without taking a class if they are eighteen or older. That’s what I did, and many people do it every year. If you fall into this category, then you should check out taking that driver’s education course anyway. You might have read the handbook that describes traffic laws in order to study for your driving test, but that isn’t quite the same. If you take a driver’s education course, even if you already know everything they are teaching, then you can save a few bucks on your car insurance premium.
There’s another course that you can take that would get you some savings on your insurance premium, and that is a defensive driving course. Most car insurance companies will offer you a five to fifteen percent discount for taking this kind of course, and you can learn a lot from it as well. These courses teach you plenty of necessary information on the rules of the road and avoiding accidents.
And you don’t have to be young to take a defensive driving class, either. Seniors can score even bigger savings on their insurance premium if they choose to take one of these courses in order to refresh their driving memory. In fact, Hartford AARP offers defensive driving classes for a cheap price, but you can get them in many other places.
It helps for more things than just a discount on your car insurance, too. Most young people get some kind of ticket for a moving violation before they turn twenty five, and usually if you take a defensive driving course then they will take the ticket off your record. If that happens, then you won’t see a raise in your insurance premium, and again, you’re saving money.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Combine Home and Car Insurance Policies to Get a Lower Rate
When I lived in California for about half a year, one thing that I realized when searching for a good car insurance company was that many of the companies there weren’t dedicated to car insurance alone, but also offered things such as renter’s insurance, homeowner’s insurance, and life insurance. At the time I already had a life insurance policy back home, but since I intended on getting car insurance there and also was renting a short term lease apartment, I decided to get renter’s insurance as well.
When I combined these two policies, I received a ten percent savings on both of them, discount that I would not have received if I had gotten my car insurance from one company and my renter’s insurance from another. This is called the combined insurance discount, and it’s why it’s a good reason to get all of your insurance policies with one company. Not only is it cheaper, but it makes everything simpler as well. If you need to file a claim for your insurance as well as your homeowner’s insurance, you only have to go to one company. And you can pay all of your bills together.
In a similar vein, you can get cheaper insurance rates, although not outright discounts, when you have more than one person or vehicle on your policy. This is why most married couples see their rates go down after the wedding day, or at least it is part of the reason. If you add other members of your household to your policy, it dilutes the risk and you will see your car insurance rates drop. I found this out when I got on a policy with my roommate, but it is true for everyone.
As a final note, one thing that many people do not know about is that a lot of companies who deal in insurance offer renewal discounts. This is not necessarily a discount only for renewing your policy with them, but is usually something that you get after you have been with the same company for several years. If you find a good company that will consistently offer you the best car insurance rates, then stay with them and ask about the renewal discount. However, don’t stay with a company just for this discount when you can get better rates elsewhere.
Loading ...