Temporary Car Insurance - Is it Worth While

Let's say you're a Car Insurance Company and you offer someone temporary car insurance for 3 days while their own car is being repaired.

Let's say that the premium for those 3 days is $60. That will provide you with full cover. Now let's also assume that you have an accident and the car is written off. The company that insured you will have to meet the cost of replacing that car (let's say $15000) and also any third party claims as well.

And all they got for their trouble was a mere $60.

That's why temporary car insurance can be hard to find at an affordable rate. Not all companies want to get involved. Sure they will insure you on an annual term where they get you signed up and collect monthly payments from you. And if you're like me, you'll just stay with them year after year because that's the easy thing to do, so they get your business for years, not just for a few days. So long term car insurance is worth the risk to these companies.

Finding this type of insurance isn't as easy as you would think.

The logical place to start is with your existing company and see if they can cover you for the few days you need. That might also be the cheapest option because they will already have all of your details and know whether you are a good or a bad risk.

But not everyone will already have car insurance. maybe you are buying your first car and have to drive somewhere to pick it up and can't get a ride with a friend, or a rental is too expensive so you can borrow a car for a couple of days and leave the car at the far end with a buddy, who knows. So in this case you don't have the luxury of calling your own car insurance company. So you might try the yellow pages, or in the Internet, but which one do you choose because there are millions of different insurance companies wanting your business.

This is where I have a sneaky little trick for you.

If you live in the UK, then you might already know this trick, but if you're from the USA you might not.

One of the most growing markets at the moment is price comparison websites and the Car Insurance market has got some good ones you can exploit.

This is all you need to do.

You enter your details once into the comparison website and they go out to the insurance companies that they have signed up and get you an instant quote for what ever you want. That might be temporary car insurance or even young persons car insurance which is very hard to find at a reasonable rate.

So after entering your details once, you get a list of maybe 20 or 30 car insurance companies that will provide you with car insurance. Usually the premium will be displayed along with the name of the company, so you know at a glance the cost and the company that is making you the offer.

Now here's the trick...

If you click the link on the comparison site and go through to the insurance company and then go on to buy the insurance, the comparison site gets a commission from the insurance company. Let's say this is 10% of the premium. It might be less or it could be much more (and probably is!)

So when you get the results, decide which one you like best, but don't buy through the comparison site, get in touch with company yourself.

You already know how much they quoted you so you want to try and get that even cheaper. Here's what you can do...

Yes, you need to telephone the car insurance company and speak to someone.

You can't have a conversation with a computer, and a computer can't give you discount, but a human can, and believe me, they probably will.

Here's a typical scenario.

You get a car insurance comparison quote and a shown 30 results. The cheapest is $60 for a 3 day policy and the most expensive is $175. The cheapest doesn't have any extras whereas the expensive one does, such as legal protection, auto recovery and so on.

Now visit the cheapest option website and find out the phone number, and give them a ring.

Ask for a quote, stress that you're a new customer and their company was recommended by a friend. They like this and will be keen to sign up new business.

Give them your details and let them provide you with a quote. It will probably be in the region of what you were quoted via the comparison website, but not necessarily the same.

After they tell you the figure, tell them it's too high and you have already done some price comparisons online and you can get the same cover for less with (and choose a company that was close to your quote on the comparison site). They won't come out and call you a liar, even if they believe you are lying (which you are), but this is all part of the game.

Remember that they were prepared to give away a percentage of the premium to the comparison website as commission, so there is some scope for them to offer you a bit of discount. So ask them outright if they can give you any discount as a new customer. Just asking will nearly always work, and you will usually get 10 to 15 percent discount.

If not, ask for some extras such as free recovery, or legal protection.

It is definitely worth pursuing so if the person that you're speaking to isn't authorised to give you discount, ask to speak to their manager. Most managers will have that scope to offer discount.

And now here's the best bit...

After they have agreed to give you some discount, and they probably will, ask them for some more!

The vast majority of people will be quite happy with the first discount offer, but I always ask for more.

Looking at it from the car insurance companies perspective, customers are very hard to come by and when they get one calling them out of the blue asking for a quote on insurance, even if it's only for temporary car insurance, they do not want to let that person go without selling them a policy. You can even say that once you get your new car, you will be happy to continue using them for your main policy.

So in SOME CASES, they will give you and extra 5%, or offer you a couplon code for a reduction off something else.

I urge you to try this, not just with car insurance, but with other services as well.

We live in hard times. Hard for business and hard for us the consumer, so always ask for discount!!

Good luck.