Best Value New Car Insurance

New car insurance - your car dealer may offer to make your life easier by organising new car insurance for you, but that's often not a wise financial move. The insurer will be paying the car dealer a fat commission, and guess who will pick up the tab for that in the end? That's right - the policyholder, aka you.

Insurance for your new car is likely to be a major expense, and like all major purchases, your new car insurance should be considered carefully. Before you finalise the purchase of your new car, you should already have calculated the likely cost of your new car insurance, and set aside the money to pay for it.

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Factors Affecting Your New Car Insurance

Insurers are essentially bookies, and new car insurance is no different. Your premium is like a small bet at long odds - if the unlikely event happens, and your car is stolen or damaged, your bet pays off. If you car is OK, you lose, and you forfeit your money.

This makes insurers very interested in the odds of all these events happening to you, so they can price the odds correctly and make sure they come out ahead, either way.

Things which make you more likely to have an accident, or have your car damaged or stolen, or have a personal injury claim associated with your car, will make your premium higher. Things which make those events less likely, or reduce the payout the insurer will have to make, will reduce your premium.

Your new car insurance premium will vary based on whether you have young drivers, and the driving records of all the regular drivers, as well as the car itself - the make, model, price, and features of the car.

Your new car insurance premium will also vary based on the postcode where the car is garaged, and sometimes even your credit score.

Some insurers will allow you to trade a lower premium against a higher deductible - the amount you pay when you make a claim. Needless to say, this is only a good idea if you are pretty confident you're not going to need to use the insurance.

How To Get New Car Insurance

In many cases, you can get temporary insurance cover when you buy a new car. This temporary insurance is called a "cover note". Most major insurers will issue a cover note over the phone. You then have anything from three days to 30 days to complete the paperwork required for your proper new car insurance.

The company which issues the cover note should not require you to take out one of their policies as a condition of issuing the cover note. They may well send you paperwork to take our their new car insurance, but you should not be obligated to go with that particular company if you can find a better deal elsewhere. Make sure you ask that question when you are ordering your cover note over the phone.

The issuer of your cover note will require much of the same information that your insurer will require - your personal details, the make and model of the car, its value, and any other information affecting their possible liability. The issuer of your cover note will not require as much detail, or as much documentary evidence, as your final insurer.

This article is an extract from Mark Bennett's comprehensive guide on attaining new car insurance, which is available from AllFinanceAdvice.com.

Mark Bennett is a staff writer for AllFinanceAdvice.com, and is published regularly to other reputable financial websites and publications.

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