How Will Your Car Insurance Be Affected After a Claim?
After you file a claim, your car insurance premium is normally expected to get higher. This is so because the car insurance company now considers you as a liability. They have to compensate for the loss whenever you get involved in an accident, therefore they raise the premium rate to ensure that it covers all the expenses and gets profit for them.
How much your car insurance will be affected is hard to say. One of the main factors is by how many claims you have had total. If you have had an accident before your premiums will go up even more. If you have had several different accidents you are a high risk driver and will be expected to pay dearly for it.
Your insurance may also be affected by how frequently the car accidents took place. If you had two car accidents in a year, without much gap in between, your premium rates can escalate higher. Regardless of where you search for, your insurance will be influenced by your driving history in this fashion, though it is possible that you might get a better rate if you look around.
The highest premiums are saved for young male drivers. Although it is a bit of a stereotype, insurance companies have done research to find the drivers that are most likely to get into an accident. Since their driving record is fairly new, young drivers are instantly more of a liability. If they get into a car accident the premiums will skyrocket until several years afterward with having a clean record.
In certain cases your insurance may not be affected as much. This is usually if the accident was not your fault or if you have had a long standing clean record. Of course, some insurance companies will still up your rates regardless, even if the accident wasn?t your fault.
To understand how the rates are set you need to know a little about ISO symbols. ISO stands for Insurance Services Offices, Inc. and they assign every car a certain symbol or number that relates to how much the care is worth. This is what makes the insurance companies ratings fair and equal for everyone. If your ISO rating is high it means that you have an expensive vehicle and it will cost more to repair. Vehicles that cost more to repair are required to have higher premiums. If you get into an accident your premiums will go up relative to what your ISO rating is as well.
Your car insurance will of course not be cancelled after accident, but it may increase so much that you may have to terminate it. Even though you call off your insurance after an accident, you will receive the full coverage of your claim. Remember that the accurate time of accident is extremely essential. If the accident took place even after a minute of the expiry of your plan, your claim will become void and you?ll have to bear the costs yourself.
Knowing this you now realize how much a claim affects your premiums. You may therefore see it as unnecessary to file a claim for small accidents, seeing as you may end up paying double or more in higher premiums. In most cases it is better not to file a claim if the damage is under $750 dollars. You may also want to avoid putting in a claim if you have another accident on your record that same year.
Graham McKenzie is the content syndication coordinator for Carinsurancesa.co.za. South Arica?s leading car insurance portal.
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