Finding who has the cheapest car insurance in your area is just a matter of going on any Internet search engine, typing in “cheapest car insurance”, and in seconds you have more links to online car insurance sites than you know what to do with. You go into a handful of the sites, enter your zip code and a list of car insurance companies in your area appears. Then you request your free quotes from the companies that look interesting enough. The quotes appear in your inbox and you just go with the lowest one, right? Not so fast.

Car insurance companies use criteria such as your driving record, driving experience, year, make and model of your car, where you live and credit history to determine how much the charge you for coverage. The more positives reflected in each of these areas, as well as a few others, the greater your chances of getting the cheapest car insurance possible, and maybe even cheaper.

If you have a string of speeding tickets, DUIs and other traffic violations, have been driving for only a short time (less than three years), poor credit or live in the city versus a rural area, getting the cheapest car insurance rates will be an uphill battle you may lose. If any of these criteria applies to you, an insurance company would consider you a high risk and high risk always means higher premiums. On the flip side, even living in a city would have less impact if you have a clean driving record, more than three years of driving under your belt and good credit. An insurance company would then consider you a lower risk. Thus your premiums will be much lower, and you’ll qualify for more premium-reducing discounts.

Reviewing your current car insurance portfolio ahead of time will help you figure out your chances that a car insurance company who has the cheapest car insurance rates who will be able to offer you such rates, or if they won’t because of some bad decisions on your part. Regardless, you definitely want to shop around with multiple companies before settling on one. If you can’t get the cheapest car insurance a company can offer, go with the company who can provide you with the coverage that meets all of your needs at a price you can comfortably afford. Enter your zip code in one of the boxes on our site and we will let you compare companies for free.