Get the right car insurance cover

We show you how even small changes to your circumstances matter with car insurance, and give you some tips to ensure you get the right cover, not just the cheapest cover.

Let me introduce Mr Dshchrfjuchkl. I created him by bashing my keyboard randomly when running lovemoney.com's car insurance comparison tool. I'm going to use him and the tool for a series of tests. The tests are to show you how even little things can change which insurer is the cheapest for you. I'll also demonstrate some curious things that'll affect the price of your insurance.

Your name is pretty much the only thing about you that can't affect the price of your car insurance, which is good news for Mr Dshchrfjuchkl. Insurers have statistics on a great deal else though, so let me tell you a bit more about him.

Mr Dshchrfjuchkl is a 45-year-old living in Farnborough, Hampshire. He's single, perhaps because eligible partners want a last name that can be pronounced without spitting on everyone. He's had no accidents, and has a full no-claims bonus. He's an employed manager and he rents his home. His car is a 2005 Vauxhall Astra 1.8i. He wants comprehensive insurance.

Test one: access to other vehicles

His cheapest quote was with swiftcover at £206.50. However, I then made a slight change when Mr D. reminded me that he has access to other cars. After the change, the AA was the cheapest at £202.40. A 45-year-old might not think being on his mum's policy makes all that much difference to his driving ability, yet it still affects the price a little.

My first aside: reading the small print

This is a good place to make a short aside about price not being everything. In my first search, where swiftcover was cheapest, the AA was just £4 more expensive. However, when I selected the More Info boxes for both Swiftcover and the AA, I saw that the AA comes with more benefits than Swiftcover, namely free breakdown and loss of keys cover.

I also see that Swiftcover is one of an increasing number of insurers to not include a courtesy car as standard in comprehensive policies. This enables Swiftcover to get its policy further up the results tables, which is why you should always read the More Info boxes. On the downside, More Info tells us that the AA's total policy excess is £370 versus swiftcover's £250, but to Mr D., the extra benefits are worth it.

Of course, Mr D. would never rely solely on the More Info boxes:  he would also always read the actual small print itself, in case of errors or in case it's changed recently.

My second aside: don't argue - it was your fault!

I'll begin my second test with another aside, if that's linguistically possible. When getting a car insurance quote, there's something you need to be aware of. When you tick the box stating you've had an accident and are asked 'Who was at fault?' the answer is you, if:

• You actually were at fault (of course) or;
• You weren't at fault, but your insurer was unable to recover all its costs of claim from the other party's insurer.

Read that second bullet again, because it's important. If that applies to you, you should report your claim as a fault claim. More than 99% of the time, insurers will call it a fault claim, so when your new insurer inquires about it from your old, that's the information it'll receive. I hate to be the bearer of that bad news, but it's your responsibility to disclose this correctly.

If you really think your case is exceptional (perhaps because your insurer was out of pocket by just a few pounds) you can call your old and new insurers, or your broker, and try to haggle. I've worked in the industry so I know it can work, but make sure you get any agreement in writing before you sign a new contract.

Test two: Mr D. has a non-fault claim

Talking about non-fault claims, let's get back to Mr D, because he recalls that he's not on someone else's policy after all, but he did claim last year. It was the other party's fault, and his insurer recovered its repair costs from the other insurer. Mr D kept his full no-claims bonus.

However, even under these circumstances, his insurance quotes have risen - for his existing insurer too. This is because many insurers have found that, statistically, if you've had a non-fault claim you're still likely to cost them more in future than someone who's had no claims whatsoever.

With the non-fault claim added to Mr D's quote, AA's cover went up in price so that it was just the fourth cheapest, beaten by Hastings, swiftcover and directchoice, in that order.

Test three: a new look for the car

Now let's say Mr D didn't have an accident at all, but he's modified his car. It's nothing fancy or expensive; he hasn't turned it into a racer. All he's done is add side-stripes.  However, suddenly the AA and swiftcover are not even interested in insuring his vehicle. They won't even quote him. In fact, the list of insurers willing to cover him drops from 36 to 23. And that's without a performance-enhancing modification. His car simply looks a bit more like a badger.

The cheapest insurer for Mr D. with the modification was ibuyeco costing £220.09, with a total excess of £220.

Aside three: tell the insurer everything

It's important to declare absolutely every modification, no matter how trivial you think it is, as failure to do so can invalidate your insurance, or at the very least make your insurer cross. This happened to my brother who, clueless about cars, bought one with a load of mods he was unaware of. His premium eventually went up £100, but they could have, theoretically, immediately withdrawn his insurance.

That was just the small things

I've deliberately picked small things to show you the difference they can make. Bigger things, such as a new car, changing address, fault claims, criminal and motoring convictions, performance-enhancing modifications, and additional drivers, will have a greater impact on both price and the cheapest insurer for you.

> Most insurers routinely charge more for existing customers, so compare car insurance quotes with lovemoney.com.