Insurance companies are a business like any other and businesses do not thrive by being reckless. Indeed insurance companies make or break their bottom line by being very cautious and sober about their business. This is why all insurance companies tend to be extremely good at accessing risk and this is by far the most important consideration before they accept to issue an insurance policy to cover anything. Now, it is rather obvious that young drivers pose a major risk on our roads. They drive way too fast and will take all kinds of risks that older people would not with abandon. And the accident statistics illustrate this all too clearly. It is all part of growing up and being young. But for this reason it is extremely difficult for young drivers to get cheap car insurance. What will tend to happen is that the younger a driver is (up to a certain age) the higher the premiums they will tend to attract from any car insurance company.

Is there a way out of this? Does a responsible and careful young driver still have to pay the price for his entire generation and age group by paying substantially more for their car insurance? Actually there are ways of legally and acceptably going round this so that a young driver in South Africa today can actually manage to pay much lower car insurance premiums than their age mates.

The most obvious way of dealing with this problem as an under 25 year old is to use your parents’ car insurance policy. That means that the car you are driving will have to be registered in their name and you must also be living with them in most cases for you to take advantage of this. This will give you big savings although the down side is that independent-minded young adults will certainly not like the idea of still being under the wing of their parents. Unfortunately it is the price you may need to pay for lower car insurance premiums. Otherwise you will just have to accept the much higher insurance premiums.

Another smart way for a young person to get cheap car insurance is to get married. It is amazing what this institution can do for you. Married people tend to be much more responsible in everything they do and insurance companies know this. And so you can use your marriage certificate as a powerful negotiation tool to get a better deal for your car insurance.

How long have you been driving as a young person? Chances are that you may have gotten your driving license at a very tender age and have been driving your parent’s car for over 5 years before you reached the situation where you have your own car and are seeking insurance. If in all that time you have had a clean driving record then it could help you reduce your insurance premiums substantially.

The other factor you can use to dramatically reduce on the insurance premiums you my have had to pay as a young person is to use your parent’s insurance company. If they have been with the same insurer for a substantial length of time and you make the insurance company understand that the policy is being taken out by the same household (same file in their records) then you should be able to get an insurance policy for your car at a substantially lower rate than you would if you had just walked to another insurance company to start a brand new relationship.

You will already be aware of the fact that the type of car you drive will always have an impact on your insurance premiums. Can you imagine what the people accessing the risk will think when they note your tender age and then realize that you are driving a high performance sports car? Young people like to impress and most of all they like to reflect their interesting vibrant personalities in the kind of car they drive. There is nothing wrong with this, but if you want lower car insurance premiums you will have to pay the price of going for a more modest car.

And those are some of the smart tips that a young person can use to get cheap car insurance in South Africa today.