Low Deposit Car Insurance

Insurance traps to avoid
Short term car insurance
Monthly car insurance
no deposit insurance for young drivers

If you want to find car insurance with a low (or even no) deposit it's hardly surprising, it's no secret that car insurance costs have been rising dramatically over the last 12 months or so, partly the result of fraud, compensation claims and, would you believe it, the massive costs of marketing that many insurance companies have embarked upon! However, I digress. The important thing is that you don't want to pay out a lump sum for your premium, and you don't want to pay a high deposit either. I don't blame you and it's not a problem.

A number of insurance companies have adopted a low deposit scheme. Its operation is very simple; the premium is divided by 12 and you make monthly repayments by credit card, and since you don't have to pay your credit card bill for at least another month you in effect don't have to put down any deposit at all! Simples!

A huge and rapidly growing number of people now pay their car insurance in this way, and they are not limited to the lower paid, students, or those who are generally hard up either because very many monthly paid people prefer to do it in this way; it helps them to keep a firm hold on their finances. Like all systems however this one has advantages and disadvantages, a few of which are as follows: –

Advantages

Quite simple really; you not only don't have to pay for all your insurance upfront, but you don't even have to pay your deposit for anything between one month and three months depending upon when your credit card payments are due. If you're not short of money it means that you can keep it in your pocket, and if you are it means that you can have your insurance today and not in the distant future when you've saved up the mind-boggling premium that it's going to cost you.

Disadvantages

The disadvantage is that it can sometimes cost you a little more than it would if you had paid everything upfront. The reason for this is twofold; the first is that the insurance companies are aware that a small number of people who take out an insurance contract involving monthly repayments do not in fact complete those payments; a very unwise thing to do as I will explain later. Secondly, the way that insurance companies make a large proportion of their income is by investing money that they take in as premiums on stocks, shares, government bonds and any other securities that they feel they can make a profit on. If your money only comes in in drips and drabs rather than as one upfront payment they will have far less of your cash available to them at any time, so their investment income will be less. The insurers need to cover the cost of this, so it is sometimes loaded onto those who pay monthly.

Balanced against this the fact that car insurance, despite the enormous costs involved to the consumer, is still a highly competitive business and there is a huge market in people who wish to pay monthly. Insurers are eager to secure this business because once they have a client on their books buying car insurance, they can also sell home insurance, life cover, business policies, and all other forms of insurance that they can make a good profit on, to a high proportion of them. A lot of them are therefore quite prepared to subsidise the extra problems involved in accepting monthly repayments as part of the cost of growing their businesses. Periodically quite a few of them make special offers for zero deposit insurance including interest-free repayments and even special online discounts; this of course would be no use to you whatsoever if the special offer cropped up before or after you wished to buy your insurance so the only way to make sure of getting the best deal at the time is to take a look at very many offers simultaneously and then select the best deal available; in other words use a dedicated no deposit comparison website.

Just a word of caution; as I mentioned above it is vital that, if you agree to make monthly repayments for your car insurance, you actually complete your side of the bargain. This is because insurers take a very dim view indeed of people who stop their payments in this manner; you will almost certainly find that the insurance contract lays down stiff financial penalties for this type of action and, yes, they not only will probably pursue you for these but may also circulate details to other insurers which could mean that you could find it difficult or even impossible to get hold of cover on reasonable terms in the foreseeable future.

To conclude then, this type of policy may or may be in your best interests, depending upon your own individual circumstances. In order to make a properly informed decision make sure that you get the maximum number of quotes that you can that include not only the monthly repayments but also the amount of the full upfront payment, so that you can make a properly informed decision.