How to Know You're Throwing Money Away for Auto Insurance in Rake

Are you sick and tired of scraping the payment together each month for car insurance? You're in the same situation as the majority of other car owners in Iowa. With consumers having so many options when it comes to auto insurance, it is very difficult to pick the lowest cost car insurance company.

Are you getting all your discounts?

Insurance can cost an arm and a leg, but companies offer discounts that can drop the cost substantially. Certain discounts will be applied when you get a quote, but less common discounts must be inquired about before you will receive the discount. If you don't get every credit available, you're paying more than you need to.

  • Memberships - Affiliation with a professional or civic organization is a good way to get lower rates when buying auto insurance.
  • Driver's Ed - Have your child enroll in driver's education in high school.
  • Employee of Federal Government - Being employed by or retired from a federal job could cut as much as 10% off depending on your company.
  • Passive Restraints and Air Bags - Vehicles equipped with air bags can receive discounts of 20% or more.
  • Seat Belts Save - Buckling up and requiring all passengers to buckle their seat belts can save 10% or more off the personal injury premium cost.
  • Senior Discount - Mature drivers can possibly qualify for a discount up to 10%.

As a disclaimer on discounts, most discount credits are not given to the entire cost. Most only reduce the price of certain insurance coverages like physical damage coverage or medical payments. Just because you may think all the discounts add up to a free policy, auto insurance companies aren't that generous. Any amount of discount will help reduce the cost of coverage.

To see a list of insurers with the best auto insurance discounts in Iowa, click here to view.

Comprehensive Auto Insurance Comparison in Rake

Most companies provide insurance quotes on their websites. Getting online quotes doesn't take much effort as you just enter the amount of coverage you want as detailed in the form. Once you submit the form, their system will obtain reports for credit and driving violations and gives you a price quote. This makes it a lot easier to compare rates but the process of having to visit several different sites and enter the same data into a form is repetitive and time-consuming. But it's very important to perform this step if you want to find the best price on auto insurance.

The preferred way to find cheaper rates requires only one form to get prices from a bunch of companies at once. The form is fast, helps eliminate reptitive entry, and makes quoting online much easier to do. After sending your information, it gets priced and you are able to buy any or none of the price quotes you receive.

If one or more price quotes are lower than your current rates, you can click and sign and purchase the new policy. The whole process just takes a couple of minutes and you'll know if lower rates are available.

To quickly find out if lower rates are available, click here to open in new window and enter your information. If you have coverage now, it's recommended you input the insurance coverages identical to your current policy. This makes sure you will receive comparison quotes based on the exact same insurance coverage.

Understand what determines the rate you pay

An important part of buying insurance is that you know the different types of things that come into play when calculating auto insurance rates. When you know what positively or negatively impacts premium levels helps enable you to make changes that could result in much lower annual insurance costs.

The list below includes a partial list of the pieces that factor into premiums.

  • Liability coverage protects you - The liability section of your policy will protect you if a jury decides you are liable for damages caused by your negligence. Liability provides legal defense which can be incredibly expensive. Carrying liability coverage is mandatory and cheap compared to insuring for physical damage coverage, so do not cut corners here.
  • Keep rates low by being claim-free - Auto insurance companies in Iowa award discounts to insureds who do not rely on their insurance for small claims. If you are a frequent claim filer, you can pretty much guarantee higher rates. Your insurance policy is intended to be relied upon for major claims that would cause financial hardship.
  • Clean credit earns discounts - A driver's credit rating is a huge factor in your rate calculation. Consumers who have high credit ratings tend to be less risk to insure than drivers with lower ratings. If your credit can use some improvement, you could pay less to insure your by improving your rating.
  • Rates may be higher depending on your occupation - Occupations such as judges, business owners and stock brokers are shown to have the highest rates in part from high stress levels and long work days. On the other hand, occupations such as farmers, students and the unemployed pay the least.
  • Men fork out a little more - The statistics show women tend to be less risk to insure than men. However, don't assume that men are WORSE drivers than women. Both sexes are in accidents in similar numbers, but the male of the species cause more damage and cost insurance companies more money. Men also tend to receive more costly citations like reckless driving and DUI.
  • Theft deterrents lower rates - Driving a car with anti-theft technology or alarm system can help lower your rates. Anti-theft devices like vehicle immobilizer systems, General Motors OnStar and LoJack tracking systems all hinder car theft.
  • Pay less if you're married - Having a wife or husband actually saves money on your policy. Having a spouse usually means you are more responsible it has been statistically shown that drivers who are married are more cautious.

How can Allstate, GEICO and Progressive save drivers who switch?

Iowa drivers can't get away from ads for the lowest price auto insurance from companies such as Allstate, GEICO and Progressive. All the companies make an identical promise about savings if you move your policy.

But how can every company say the same thing? This is how they do it.

Insurance companies can use profiling for the right customer that is profitable for them. For instance, a profitable customer might be profiled as between the ages of 30 and 50, has no tickets, and has great credit. A propective insured who meets those qualifications will get the preferred rates and as a result will probably save a lot of money.

Drivers who are not a match for this ideal profile must pay higher premiums and ends up with business not being written. The ads state "drivers who switch" not "everybody who quotes" save that kind of money. That's why companies can truthfully advertise the savings.

This illustrates why drivers must get as many quotes as possible. It's not possible to predict the company that will fit your personal profile best.

A tidy conclusion

Cheap auto insurance is definitely available on the web in addition to many Rake insurance agents, and you should compare price quotes from both to have the best chance of lowering rates. There are still a few companies who do not provide the ability to get a quote online and usually these small, regional companies provide coverage only through local independent agents.

Throughout this article, we presented some good ideas how you can compare auto insurance prices online. The key concept to understand is the more rate comparisons you have, the higher the chance of saving money. You may be surprised to find that the lowest rates come from a smaller regional carrier. These smaller insurers may have significantly lower rates on certain market segments than the large multi-state companies such as .

compare Rake auto insurance rates

More Iowa auto insurance information

Additional information is located on the website for the Iowa Insurance Division. Click here for link. Iowa drivers can find out which companies have the most complaints, download brochures, find out industry alerts, and read industry bulletins.

Additional helpful sites include this link for Iowa auto insurance quotes and this link which helps you find a Rake agent.