compare car insurance

What is car insurance?

Car insurance covers you if your car is stolen, someone breaks into your motor or you are involved in an accident. It also protects other road users if you damage their vehicle or property.

The cost – your premium – is based on how much of a risk insurers perceive you to be - ie, how likely they think you will be to make a claim. A youngster who's just passed their test will pay more than someone who can prove they have been accident-free for years

You would expect third-party cover to be the cheapest because it is the lesser cover, just covering the person you bump into and their car. Yet don't expect car insurance to be logical.

With some insurers the mere fact you have selected comprehensive, which includes your car too as well as fire and theft, means you'll be assessed as a lower risk (based on actuarial history, which is what an insurer will hold about a particular age group or address, for example, on which they base their premiums).

This can outweigh the fact you get more cover, and make your policy cheaper.

There are no hard rules here, it's a matter of trial and error, yet if you're just looking for the very cheapest cover, never only check third party.

 2. Getting insurance 21 days ahead is the best time and can save £100s

An MSE investigation in which we analysed more than 18 million quotes from three of the biggest price comparison sites – Confused.com, Compare The Market and MoneySupermarket – has revealed buying your car insurance three weeks ahead of the start day can save you £100s, compared with buying it too early or leaving it until the day before or on the renewal day.

Based on an average price, the cheapest time to buy your policy is 21 days before the start date, with the price differences closely aligned to how much of a risk you're deemed to be, and when the highest number of insurers will provide quotes (see the full price investigation). If you are already within the 21-day period, act now as the price tends to increase closer to the start date of the policy.

We've full info on how to bag the cheapest policy in this guide - see our comparison sites order below.

Here are a few successes from MoneySavers who've got their insurance around the sweet spot...

Multi-car insurance can sometimes save £100s – even if you’ve different renewal dates

If you have more than one car in your immediate family or household, this could be for you, and having different renewal dates needn't be a blocker. For some, discounts for adding multiple cars could save £100s, or even £1,000s in some cases, but for others it could actually be more expensive. 

What tends to happen is multi-car newbies get hot offers to suck 'em in, but that advantage can disappear at renewal.

1. Check multi-car policies 

This is where all cars are on one policy. The big one is Admiral MultiCar*, while Aviva* and LV* also provide multi-car policies. If your policies start at the same time, it's easy. If not, see below.

If you have different renewal dates, this is how it works

The three insurers above let you set up a policy at your first car's renewal, while the other car(s) stay with their existing insurer, until their renewal.

So you can get a multi-car quote for all your vehicles with different start dates, eg, get cover for your lead car to start in three weeks' time, car two to start in seven months and car three in 10 months. Cars two and three will stay insured with their existing insurer until their current policy ends, at which time they will move across to the multi-car policy, for the remainder of that term. 

When you pay for the additional car(s) and when the discount kicks in differs (see table below). Once your multi-car policy ends, all cars will be up for renewal at the same time.

How to compare prices

If you want your multi-car cover for all your vehicles to start at the same time, it's simple, you'll just be given one total cost. For different start dates, you'll be given a total price to pay, which'll cover all the cars (you just pay for however long each car is insured for), and you'll also be given an 'annual equivalent price', as if all vehicles were insured for a full year, to help you compare against other providers. 

How multi-car insurers differ