Mrs, Miss or Ms? The tiny tweaks that could make your car insurance cheaper

Telegraph

2 days ago

When you're looking for a car insurance policy, you might think that the price only depends on what kind of car you have and how much you drive it.
While both of those factors have a bearing on the policy prices you're quoted, the truth is that insurance companies take in the minutiae of all of your personal details when weighing up your level of risk – and, therefore, how much you're charged to cover it.
There are some things you can't do anything about, such as your age. However, there are some tweaks you can make that can bring down your policy cost.
The key when weighing up whether to change certain details is that they must still be true. If any of the information you provide is inaccurate, or you have lied in any way, you won't be covered if you make a claim.
James Daley, MD at consumer group, Fairer Finance, also warned: 'There are lots of little ways you can bring down your car insurance premium – but you need to be careful experimenting with your answers on comparison sites, as you'll quickly get flagged as a fraud risk.'
Here, Telegraph Money explains some of the tweaks you can make when searching for car insurance to reduce the cost – from altering your job title to adjusting your mileage.
Consider your title
Rethink your profession
Think about where you park
Alter your annual mileage
Renew at the right time
Consider your title
The title used before your name can affect your car insurance quote. Data obtained by Which? shows that drivers using the title 'Mr' faced the highest average premium at £1,695, compared with £1,331 for 'Miss', £863 for 'Mrs' and £720 for 'Ms'.
Insurers can no longer use a customer's gender to set prices. However, titles can indirectly reflect underlying risk factors, such as age and driving experience. Switching from 'Miss' to 'Ms', for example, may be worth checking when searching for a new quote – but this change alone is unlikely to result in a cheaper deal.
Rethink your profession
Insurers rely on claims data to assess which occupations are more likely to make a claim. If your job falls into a higher-risk category, you'll typically pay more for your car insurance.
Analysis by Quotezone shows that healthcare assistants and warehouse workers face some of the highest premiums, at more than £1,000 a year. By comparison, nurses (£668.23), administration assistants (£663.49) and HGV drivers (£556.31) enjoy the cheapest premiums.
You don't need to go through a career change if your occupation is at the higher end of the scale – instead, it's worth exploring whether you could describe your job in a different way when you're reviewing quotes, according to Greg Wilson, from Quotezone. This is a legitimate option if the alternative description still accurately explains what you do.
'As long as the description remains accurate and honest, variations in an individual's job title could help bring the cost down,' said Mr Wilson.
For example, instead of describing yourself as a 'healthcare assistant', try changing it to 'care assistant' or 'care worker' to see if it lowers the cost. Similarly, if you're retired it can be cheaper to make sure you're described as such, rather than 'unemployed'.
Think about where you park
According to the RAC, wherever you describe as your overnight parking location at the time of applying for an insurance quote, or renewal, will be assumed as where your car is parked the majority of the time.
Policy costs tend to reduce the more secure the parking location is – but, of course, it needs to reflect where your car is genuinely parked most of the time.
RAC says that for insurance purposes, a 'driveway' can include asphalt, concrete, gravel or grass anywhere outdoors – but somewhere on your property. On-road parking describes a vehicle being parked at the side of the road near where you live, but not necessarily directly outside your property.
To describe your car as being parked in a locked garage, this must be an enclosure on your property that is actually locked and requires a key to open it. It may sound obvious, but it's important to make sure the description is accurate – if you make a claim and your car is not parked where you described it, your claim could be invalidated.
Alter your annual mileage
If you've over-estimated the amount of driving you're going to be doing over the next year, you could be landing yourself with a needlessly expensive policy.
This is down to the theory that driving fewer miles can reduce your risk of an accident, which is why lower mileage often leads to cheaper car insurance.
But it's not always that simple. Research from Compare the Market found that the cheapest average premiums were for drivers covering between 11,000 and 11,999 miles a year, at £511. By comparison, more occasional drivers covering 10,000 to 10,999 miles paid more on average, at around £645.
For this reason, it's worth testing a few realistic mileage brackets when comparing quotes. Just remember that your final figure must still be accurate. Exceeding the amount you've specified can invalidate your cover, and your insurer won't pay out in the event of a claim.
Renew at the right time