When it’s time to buy a car, there’s more to think about in terms of expenses than just the cost of the vehicle. You’ll need to pay upfront fees (which are often worked into the total cost of the car) as well as insurance premiums on it.
Everyone wants to save as much money as they can, and getting affordable premiums is a great way to do this.
Here are five ways to find affordable car insurance in South Africa.
1. Compare quotes
It starts with comparing car insurance quotes. There are two ways you can go about doing this. The first is to take the time to compare them yourself. This means filling out online quotes on various insurers’ websites or phoning them and going through the full quote process (which can take 15 minutes+ to complete).
The other way is to use an insurance quote comparer or aggregator. These are companies, typically based online, that compare all the quotes for you. You input the details of your demographics (like your name and address) and information about your vehicle, and they’ll check with a bunch of insurance companies to see how much they’ll charge you monthly as well as what your excess will be. This whole process usually takes a few minutes, so don’t worry that you might be left waiting days for an answer.
2. Change your excess
Many insurers will offer you the opportunity to switch up how much excess you pay if you claim. You can toggle this up or down, and your premium will change inversely. In other words, if you increase your excess, your monthly payments come down. If you decrease your excess, your monthly premiums go up.
When deciding to change your excess, keep in mind what you’ll be able to afford should you need to claim. Do you have R5,000, for example, lying around if you’re in an accident? If not, then consider lowering it and increasing your monthly premiums instead.
3. Carefully choose the car you drive
Some cars are simply more of a risk to insurers, which drives up your premiums. Whether they’re prone to hijacking and theft, like the BMW 3 Series or Toyota Fortuner,1 or they’re expensive to repair, the car you drive has the biggest impact on your insurance premiums.
If you really don’t want to pay a fortune for car insurance, consider buying a second-hand car that has a local manufacturing plant (so that parts are easily available) and that isn’t on the list of most-stolen vehicles.
If you’re unsure what your car will cost to insure, you can check this out before you’ve bought the vehicle. Simply get the basic details of the car – its make, model and year, and complete a quick quote (many insurance companies offer this on their websites). You won’t get a 100% accurate answer, but you’ll get a ballpark figure that will tell you what you need to know about insuring your dream car.
4. Don’t customise your vehicle
Dropped suspension and sub-woofers might make your car cool, but it’s going to cost you in your monthly premiums. Any customisation to your car changes its value, and that means your insurance payments are bound to go up. Why? Well, with a dropped suspension, you’re more likely to scrape your car on a speed bump, for example. And with sub-woofers, there’s a greater chance the vehicle will be broken into.
5. Go with the cheapest quote at your peril
It’s tempting to choose the cheapest insurance quote, and sometimes, that’s the right decision, but not always. Look at an insurance provider’s Trust Pilot or Hello Peter ratings, if they have these, and check out their social media pages. You want an insurer that’s known for paying out claims, not one where people complain all the time about not getting any money out.
Sure, you’ll never find an insurance provider with a 100% positive rating, but you can suss out a lot by reading complaints and compliments.
Now that you know how to get affordable car insurance premiums every month, it’s time to get a quote. Whether you choose to get the quotes yourself or go with a company that compares car insurance quotes for you, make sure you do thorough research on the car and the insurer you want to go with.
