Insurance, Northern Ireland and your motor vehicle

For insurance, including car insurance, Northern Ireland now offers opportunities for both choice and influencing the amount you have to pay for your policy.

In terms of insurance, Northern Ireland policies may now be more susceptible to cost reducing measures such as:

• the cost of insurance for people with ‘clean licences’ is typically lower than for those with multiple penalty points – so working hard to keep your licence clean, makes sense in financial terms;
• cars parked on the street are typically more at risk than those parked on a driveway or in a garage, so if you can, get yours off the road when it is not in use;
• insurance providers are not ‘anti’ young people or inexperienced drivers, however, they do need to recognise them as being typically higher-risk drivers and therefore will typically charge them a higher premium – so avoiding including them on your policy may be something you wish to think about, unless you have absolutely no alternative;
• one of the larger factors behind the calculation of your premium will be the nature of the vehicle itself – selecting that very large and powerful vehicle might be the stuff of your dreams but remember that it will have a knock-on effect on the cost of your insurance, which may soar for particularly powerful and expensive models;
• some insurers are not comfortable with vehicles that have been heavily modified/customised to the extent that the basic details of the car have been changed (examples might include fitting new axles or supercharged engines etc) and once again that may lead to much higher premiums;
• for car insurance, Northern Ireland quotations and supporting documentation may typically highlight further opportunities for reducing your premium – which is one reason why it is important to read all of the policy documentation carefully, before you make a final decision.

Are you looking for insurance in Northern Ireland?

If you are looking for insurance in Northern Ireland and have searched online for your home, life, car, caravan or any other type of insurance you could have found that after wading through online forms when you reached the end residents of Northern Ireland were exempt. Thankfully times have changed for the better and it is possible to now look online for almost any type of insurance and get access to competitive premiums. You can also find a great deal of information on how to make savings on all types of insurance.

As there are so many different types of insurance making savings would depend on the type you wanted. For instance if you were taking out car or caravan insurance then you would be able to choose between taking out third party fire and theft or fully comprehensive insurance. Third party would be the cheapest type of insurance you could take out but it provides little by way of cover for your own car or caravan other than if it should be stolen or if it were to be destroyed by fire.

It would however provide insurance for any third party that was involved in an accident caused by you and you would have liability insurance. Fully comprehensive insurance is the dearest type of insurance but your car or caravan would have the most complete form of protection along with the third party.

Increase your excess

Many types of insurance come with excess that is added in by the insurance provider. This is the amount that you would have to pay out of your own pocket if you were to have to make a claim on your policy. While there will be a minimum amount that you would need to payout in the event that a claim had to be made you could offer to pay out more in excess than what the provider asks for and this will help to keep down the cost of the insurance. However bear in mind that if you offered to pay £150 in excess then you would have to find this sum of money in a lump sum and if you had to make more than one claim in the same year then you would probably lose out on any savings you made.

If you were looking for insurance for your car, caravan or motorbike then you could do all you can to ensure that your vehicle was as safe as possible. If you were to park your vehicle under lock and key in a garage then you could make savings on the insurance as your vehicle would be harder to steal. You could also install security devices such as steering wheel locks, an immobiliser or a tracking device and all of these could help you to cut down on the cost of insurance Northern Ireland. If getting quotes for home insurance then installing an alarm and door and window locks could help you to make savings. If your home was behind fencing or a locked gate and walled in with security lights around the exterior then these would all go towards helping you to save on the cost of insurance.

comparethemarket.com Expand Their Panel

Comparethemarket.com has added five new members to their already broad and comprehensive panel of insurers they use to compare car insurance quotes for you. These companies are Policy Shop, One Call, Premium Choice, Direct Choice and AutoNet.

So what does this mean for Northern Ireland insurance shoppers? Put simply an already excellent quote comparison site for N Ireland has just got even better. You have no doubt seen their extensive TV advertising ad sponsorship of Channel4 drama and perhaps wondered if their service was any use for this part of the world, well it is!

Keep an eye out for a brand new and very entertaining TV ad campaign in early 2009.

…source comparethemarket.com Press Office