Car insurance is essential as it protects us financially when we are behind the wheel. Whether you have basic liability insurance or you have a full coverage plan, it's key to ensure that you are getting the best deal possible. But this convenience can often come at a hefty price.

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How do we get the best deal at an affordable rate?

Here are ten ways to lower the risk and keep the costs of insurance down:

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1. Make Your Car Safer

Making it as hard as possible for someone to steal your car lowers the risk and will likely lower the insurance cost too.

You can make your car safer by:

• Inquiring with insurers about what security appliances they offer discounts for
• Installing an authorised alarm or immobiliser
• Wherever possible, parking in a garage or driveway

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2. Drive a Car From a Low Insurance Group

All cars are assigned to a certain insurance group. This is based on many aspects such as cost, how far it takes to repair, the car’s performance, safety and security features. The lower the group it is in, the lower will be the premiums. Before buying a car, be sure to check the insurance group and get a quote (even of you haven't bought the car yet, most insurance sites will allow you) to get a better idea of the cost you'll be looking at.

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3. Don’t Miss Out on Mileage

The lower the annual mileage, the lower the premium will be. If you're someone who doesn't do many long tips, this may bring down you annual insurance quote. But this is not always the case. So never underestimate mileage, as this may impact insurance when making a claim or leave you to miss out on a better deal.

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4. Drive safely

Some insurers will give us a discount if we have taken an advanced driving course or a Pass Plus. If we are careful drivers, it may help us get a policy that uses telematics - ‘black box’ technology, to assess the quality of our driving. Keep in mind that any insurance points or claims on our licence will raise our premium.

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5. Add a second driver

The premium can be reduced by adding a second, low-risk driver, even if they don’t use the car a lot. Adding a newly qualified young driver will also raise the premium. But never break the law and sabotage our claims by faking the second driver as the main driver.

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6. Pay for your car insurance annually

Insurers at times will charge interest if we spend in monthly instalments. If we can afford to pay in advance, we can annually save a good amount.

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7. Never pay for what you don’t need

See what else our car insurance covers under other financial products. Let’s say, a few current account plans cover car breakdown costs. Sometimes our insurer or broker may try to sell us add-ons, such as a cover for legal expenditures. We may either not need them at all or we may be able to get such products more cheaply elsewhere.

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8. Consider purchasing breakdown cover individually

See the price and the level of cover ff breakdown cover is a part of our car insurance. We may find better coverage for the same cost or less elsewhere.

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9. Protect or raise your no-claims bonus

For every year we drive without making a claim on our insurance, we get a no-claims bonus. Ensure we can transfer this over when switching insurers. If we have not claimed for half a decade or more, it may be better paying an extra premium to secure our no-claims bonus.

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10. Consider including a voluntary excess to your car insurance

We can reduce our premium by including a voluntary excess to our compulsory excess. Keep in mind that if we will get less back we make a claim after both our voluntary and mandatory excesses have been used up. So we must be able to afford it.

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