8 Methods to Save on Car Insurance in Maryland Heights, MO

Having to pay for overpriced car insurance can drain your savings account and force you to prioritize other expenses. Doing a price comparison is a great way to cut your insurance bill.

Drivers have so many auto insurance companies to buy insurance from, and although it’s nice to have a selection, it can be more challenging to adequately compare rates.

Pricing the best car insurance coverage in Maryland Heights is not that difficult. In a nutshell, every vehicle owner who is required by state law to have car insurance should be able to find better rates. But Missouri consumers can benefit by having an understanding of how insurance companies market insurance on the web and use this information to your advantage.

Take these eight discounts and save

Properly insuring your vehicles can get expensive, but there are discounts available that you may not even be aware of. Some trigger automatically when you complete an application, but some may not be applied and must be inquired about before being credited.

• Anti-theft System – Anti-theft and alarm systems help deter theft and earn discounts up to 10%.
• Claim Free – Drivers who don’t have accidents pay much less as compared to frequent claim filers.
• Distant Student – Any of your kids living away from home attending college and do not have access to a covered vehicle may qualify for this discount.
• Senior Discount – Older drivers can possibly qualify for better car insurance rates.
• Air Bag Discount – Cars that have air bags and/or automatic seat belt systems can receive discounts up to 30%.
• Military Discounts – Being deployed with a military unit could mean lower rates.
• Pay Upfront and Save – If you pay your entire premium ahead of time instead of making monthly payments you can actually save on your bill.
• Organization Discounts – Affiliation with a professional or civic organization could trigger savings when buying car insurance.

It’s important to understand that most of the big mark downs will not be given to the entire policy premium. The majority will only reduce the price of certain insurance coverages like comp or med pay. So even though it sounds like all the discounts add up to a free policy, it just doesn’t work that way. Any amount of discount will cut the cost of coverage.

For a list of providers who offer car insurance discounts in Maryland Heights, follow this link.

Car Insurance Comparison Rates in Maryland Heights

Most companies allow you to get coverage price quotes online. Getting online quotes doesn’t take a lot of time as you just type in your coverage preferences into a form. Once entered, their system will order your driving record and credit report and returns pricing information based on these and other factors. This makes comparing rates easy, but the time it takes to visit each company’s website and repetitively enter the same data into a form is monotonous and tiresome. Unfortunately, it is important to get many rate quotes in order to find better prices.

The better way to compare rates

The quickest way to lower your rates makes use of a single form that gets price quotes from multiple companies. This type of form saves time, requires much less work on your part, and makes rate comparisons much easier. After your information is entered, it is quoted and you can choose your choice of the quote results.

If a lower price is quoted, you can click and sign and buy the new coverage. The entire process takes just a few minutes to complete and could lower your rates considerably.

If you want to compare rates using this form now, click here to open in new window and begin entering your coverage information. To compare your current rates, we recommend you enter deductibles and limits just like they are on your policy. Doing this guarantees you will get an apples-to-apples comparison based on similar coverages.

Do car insurance companies bend the truth?

Car insurance providers like Progressive, Allstate and GEICO constantly bombard you with ads on television and other media. They all say the same thing about savings if you switch your coverage to them. How do they all make the same claim? It’s all in the numbers.

All the different companies have a preferred profile for the type of customer that makes them money. A good example of a profitable customer could possibly be over the age of 50, has no driving citations, and has great credit. Any new insured that hits that “sweet spot” will get the preferred rates and is almost guaranteed to save when they switch companies.

Potential customers who don’t measure up to these standards must pay more money which leads to the customer not buying. Company advertisements say “customers that switch” but not “drivers who get quotes” save that much. This is how companies can truthfully claim big savings.

This illustrates why you should get quotes from several different companies. It’s just too difficult to predict which insurance companies will give you the biggest savings.

Car insurance 101

Knowing the specifics of your car insurance policy can help you determine the right coverages and the correct deductibles and limits. The terms used in a policy can be impossible to understand and nobody wants to actually read their policy. These are typical coverages offered by car insurance companies.

Collision coverage

This coverage covers damage to your vehicle from colliding with an object or car. You will need to pay your deductible and then insurance will cover the remainder.

Collision insurance covers things such as colliding with another moving vehicle, sideswiping another vehicle, backing into a parked car and colliding with a tree. This coverage can be expensive, so consider dropping it from lower value vehicles. You can also bump up the deductible to bring the cost down.

Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM)

Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist coverage gives you protection from other motorists when they do not carry enough liability coverage. Covered claims include hospital bills for your injuries as well as damage to your vehicle.

Since a lot of drivers only purchase the least amount of liability that is required (which is 25/50/10), their liability coverage can quickly be exhausted. This is the reason having UM/UIM coverage is important protection for you and your family. Usually these coverages are set the same as your liablity limits.

Med pay and Personal Injury Protection (PIP)

Med pay and PIP coverage pay for short-term medical expenses like chiropractic care, funeral costs and pain medications. They are used to fill the gap from your health insurance program or if you do not have health coverage. They cover you and your occupants and also covers if you are hit as a while walking down the street. Personal Injury Protection is not available in all states but it provides additional coverages not offered by medical payments coverage

Auto liability insurance

Liability coverage provides protection from damage that occurs to other’s property or people by causing an accident. Split limit liability has three limits of coverage: bodily injury for each person, bodily injury for the entire accident, and a limit for property damage. As an example, you may have policy limits of 25/50/25 that translate to a $25,000 limit per person for injuries, a limit of $50,000 in injury protection per accident, and a limit of $25,000 paid for damaged property. Occasionally you may see a combined single limit or CSL which provides one coverage limit rather than limiting it on a per person basis.

Liability insurance covers things like emergency aid, medical services and structural damage. How much liability should you purchase? That is your choice, but it’s cheap coverage so purchase higher limits if possible. Missouri state minimum liability requirements are 25,000/50,000/10,000 but drivers should carry better liability coverage.

Comprehensive insurance

This coverage pays for damage from a wide range of events other than collision. A deductible will apply then your comprehensive coverage will pay.

Comprehensive can pay for things such as vandalism, falling objects, a broken windshield and fire damage. The highest amount your car insurance company will pay is the ACV or actual cash value, so if your deductible is as high as the vehicle’s value consider removing comprehensive coverage.

Keep this in mind

Discount car insurance is attainable from both online companies and with local Maryland Heights insurance agents, so you should compare both in order to have the best price selection to choose from. Some insurance providers do not offer online price quotes and most of the time these small, regional companies sell through independent agents.

In this article, we covered a lot of information how to save on car insurance. The key concept to understand is the more times you quote, the better your chances of lowering your rates. Consumers could even find that the lowest rates come from a small mutual company. These companies may only write in your state and offer lower rates as compared to the big name companies such as State Farm, GEICO and Nationwide.

Much more information about car insurance in Missouri is located on the website for the Missouri Department of Insurance through this link. Visitors are able to read consumer alerts, file complaints about a company, and read state legal mandates and laws.