A lot of factors will contribute to the premium of your auto insurance policy. An insurance company will ask you some questions while processing your quotes – some of which have a direct impact on your premium while others don’t.

Here are some key variables which are within your control.

• Location: where you live plays an important role in determining the cost of your insurance. If you live in an area that is at a greater risk for vandalism and theft, you will have an expensive premium.

• Your Car: The slower and cheaper your car is, the less premium you will have. When planning to purchase a new car, factor in not only the cost of car maintenance but also insurance.

• Paying excess: if you agree to pay a big excess on the claim, you can substantially reduce the premiums since you’ll be reducing the liability for your insurer.

• Consolidating policies: when you insurer more property i.e. home and other vehicles with the same insurer, you can get a “bulk buy” discount on your premium.

• Parking: your car parking location at night can also determine your premium. In case you lock your car overnight at a garage, you are highly likely to get a lower premium than if the car spends the night on the streets.

• No Claims Discount: avoid making small claims on your policy regularly but wait for a number of years, say 4-5 years. More often the company will extend a lower premium to protect your no claim bonus. This can come in handy incase of an accident.

• Mileage: you can lower your premiums by limiting your annual mileage. A point to note however, if you exceeded the limited mileage, you will be uninsured.

• Security: installing security devices such as immobilizers and car alarms on your car can also reduce your insurance premium. Be advised though that as technology keeps advancing, so are car thieves.

• Sex: Statistically, women are less likely to cause accidents and if it happens, it’s less likely to be a fatal one. This makes women have lower premiums than their male counterparts. Of importance to note is that if you represent a couple, you should let the female be the primary driver and the male the second driver to get a lower premium.

• Age: The older you are, the more careful you are while driving and less likely to make a claim. As a result, aged people get lower premiums.

• Advanced driving skills: if you take an advanced driving course say with the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents or The Institute for Advanced Motorists, you are likely to get discounts for the driving course as well as insurance premium. These are two major variables that are within your control as a policyholder.

Finally, selling of insurance policies is now done online making it convenient and very cheap for many car owners. A lot of insurers now offer a 10-15% discount if you purchased your policy online, now you know the secret!