Follow These Proven Tips for Cheaper Yakima, WA Car Insurance

Are you overwhelmed by the wide range of car insurance choices in Yakima? You’re not alone. There are so many choices that it can be a real hassle to find the lowest price.

Finding Car Insurance in Yakima, Washington

Finding cheaper car insurance prices doesn’t have to be difficult. The only requirement is to invest a few minutes comparing rates online with multiple companies. This can be accomplished in a couple of different ways.

1. One of the best ways to compare a lot of rates at once is a comparison rater form click here to open form in new window. This easy form prevents you from having to do multiple quote forms to each individual car insurance company. Just one form gets you coverage quotes from car insurance companies with the best prices. This is by far the quickest method.
2. A slightly less efficient method to shop for car insurance online is to take the time to go to the website for each individual company to complete a price quote. For sake of this example, we’ll pretend you want comparison quotes from State Farm, Progressive and GEICO. To get rate quotes you would need to take the time to go to each site and enter your information, and that’s why the first method is more popular.

   For a handy list of car insurance company links in Yakima, click here.

It’s up to you how you get prices quotes, just make absolute certain that you use apples-to-apples information on every quote you get. If you are comparing different deductibles it will be impossible to truly determine the lowest rate in Yakima.

Do you qualify for a discount?

Car insurance companies don’t necessarily list every discount very well, so we took the time to find some of the more common and the harder-to-find savings tricks you should be using. If you don’t get every credit possible, you’re just leaving money on the table.

• Discount for Swiching Early – A few companies offer discounts for signing up before your current expiration date. The savings is around 10%.
• Driver’s Ed – Have your child take driver’s ed class in school.
• Multi-policy Discount – When you have multiple policies with the same company you could get a discount of at least 10% off all policies.
• Life Insurance Discount – Select insurance companies reward you with better rates if you take out life insurance from them.
• Seat Belts Save more than Lives – Drivers who require all occupants to use a seat belt can save up to 15% off the personal injury premium cost.
• Drive Safe and Save – Drivers who avoid accidents may save up to 50% more than drivers with accidents.
• Multi-car Discount – Insuring more than one vehicle on one policy could earn a price break for each car.
• Payment Discounts – If paying your policy premium upfront instead of paying each month you could save 5% or more.
• Lower Rates for Military – Having a deployed family member could mean lower rates.
• Defensive Driving Course – Taking a course in driver safety could save 5% or more and easily recoup the cost of the course.

It’s important to note that some of the credits will not apply to all coverage premiums. Most only apply to individual premiums such as physical damage coverage or medical payments. So even though it sounds like having all the discounts means you get insurance for free, companies wouldn’t make money that way.

To choose insurers with discount car insurance rates in Yakima, follow this link.

Save Money with These Tips

An important part of buying insurance is that you know some of the elements that play a part in calculating your car insurance rates. When you know what positively or negatively influences your rates enables informed choices that can help you get much lower annual insurance costs.

Shown below are some of the items car insurance companies consider when setting your rates.

• Bump up deductibles to save – Your deductibles define the amount you are required to spend if you file a covered claim. Coverage for physical damage, otherwise known as comp (or other than collision) and collision, covers damage that occurs to your car. A few examples of covered claims could be running into the backend of another car, damage caused by hail, and burglary. The higher the amount you have to pay, the less your car insurance will be.
• Better credit means lower rates – Credit score is a important factor in your rate calculation. So if your credit is lower than you’d like, you could pay less to insure your by improving your credit score. Drivers with high credit scores tend to file fewer claims and have better driving records than drivers with poor credit.
• Never allow your policy to lapse – Having an insurance coverage lapse is a sure-fire way to pay more for car insurance. And not only will your rates increase, getting caught without coverage will get you a steep fine or even jail time.
• Pay less after the wedding – Being married can get you a discount on car insurance. It is viewed as being more mature than a single person it has been statistically shown that married couples file fewer claims.
• Small claims can cost you – Car insurance companies in Washington give discounts to drivers who do not file claims often. If you frequently file small claims, you can definitely plan on higher rates. Car insurance is designed for the large, substantial claims.

Even more information can be found at the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner website. Visitors are able to find out industry alerts, read consumer alerts, report car insurance fraud, and learn about specific coverages.

Keep this in mind

When shopping online for car insurance, it’s not a good idea to buy lower coverage limits just to save a few bucks. In too many instances, an accident victim reduced physical damage coverage and found out when filing a claim they didn’t have enough coverage. Your focus should be to buy enough coverage at a price you can afford while still protecting your assets.

Discount car insurance can be bought online and also from your neighborhood Yakima agents, and you should be comparing both so you have a total pricing picture. A few companies may not provide online quoting and most of the time these smaller companies sell through independent agents.

We just presented a lot of ways to save on car insurance. The key thing to remember is the more rate quotes you have, the better your comparison will be. Consumers may even find the lowest priced car insurance comes from some of the lesser-known companies.