Cheap Car Insurance Tip #24: Avoid extras that you don’t really need.

In an effort to attract more customers and to stay ahead of the competition, many insurance companies have starting offering benefits such as “accident forgiveness” and “new car replacement” plans. But what many people don’t realize is that most of these “benefits” are actually doing you more harm than good, and in reality they are only good for one thing: making sure that you pay more on your auto insurance premium.

The gimmick with the “accident forgiveness” plan is that you will be paying a higher premium (as much as 15% in some cases) so that your rates will not increase in the event of an accident.  However, experts agree that this can actually cost you more money in the long run than it saves. And especially if you are already a safe driver with a clean record, this kind of protection is completely unnecessary.  Avoid such add-ons if your goal is to get cheap car insurance.

A “new car replacement” plan offers you a new car in the event that your old vehicle is totaled in an accident – however, this is a rather misleading statement. In reality, your vehicle’s value depreciates so much the very minute you drive it off the lot that in most cases your insurance company’s payout isn’t nearly enough to pay for a brand new car.