If you are like many Australians, you’ve probably not thought too much about how parking your car relates to your car insurance cover. After all, car insurance cover is just in case of driving accidents, right? Wrong. Your personal parking habits form part of your overall car insurance risk profile and should be taken into account when getting car insurance quotations.
Standard car insurance quotations make assumptions about your driving and parking habits. This is especially true of most online quotation systems. In order to provide the instant insurance quotes consumers say they desire, most companies have opted to ask very little about you. Instead they prefer to base their quotes on “average drivers” who may be nothing like you.
For example, using certain car insurance formulas, most car insurance companies assume that your car spends the majority of its time parked away from home. Because they don’t ask, these formulas calculate prices for a car parked in a public street, or in an unmonitored car park. This usually results in higher premiums, as these cars are vulnerable to dents, dings, break-ins and hit-and-run accidents.
So what if your car spends most of its life at home in your garage, parked in your driveway, or parked in a monitored zone at your office? You’ve got a lower car insurance risk profile. Unfortunately, your car insurance company is unlikely to be aware that your vehicle is different from the “average car” so you won’t see any savings on your insurance.
A better option for you would be to seek out a company that asks a few more questions about your driving and parking habits as part of their quotation process. This will enable you to show them how your car is less risky than the “average car”. The differentiation may be something you can feel in your wallet.
After all, those who park safely should not be paying the same rates as public parkers. It’s not an identical risk profile, so it should not be priced the same. You deserve an accurately priced car insurance policy so that you’re not paying too much for car insurance cover that doesn’t reflect your personal risk management behaviour.
So, the next time you go for an insurance quote, check out how many questions you are being asked. If you are only answering a few questions it’s likely you are getting a standard rate, customized for the masses, but not for you. If you don’t think your company is making the effort to find out more about you and your behaviour, it may be time to switch to someone who will.
Letting your insurance company know about your parking habits may not be instinctual for you, but sharing this information may be the easiest way to save you money. In these tough economic times every little bit helps.