Get Cheaper Car Insurance by Improving Your Credit Scores

While it seems unfair, people are penalized by car insurance companies for having weak or poor credit scores. It is a way that insurers have of determining who has the proper level of responsibility to be good drivers. Credit scores are not the only criteria involved in determining what you will pay for car insurance, but many companies will check the scores, and your premium size will reflect it if your credit is poor. You will need to take steps to improve your credit score to get those premiums lowered.

Pay off some of your debt.

Too much debt spread over too many credit cards will drive your credit scores down quickly. You have some choices about how to improve this situation. The most direct way is to just pay down the debt on the cards. This will open up more available credit and your scores will begin to rise. Unless you have significant cash reserves, this can be a slow route to improving your credit, but it will work. Of course, to reduce the debt, you have to stop creating more debt. This means learning to live without your credit cards for a while.

Pay off credit cards with a home equity loan.

Technically, this is just trading debt for debt. However, secured debt is much better for your credit scores than unsecured debt. If you can handle the payment for the equity loan, the quick reduction of credit card debt will cause a rapid jump in the numbers that reflect your credit score. This method does require that you own a house. Owning a house will usually improve credit scores and reduce insurance costs without reducing credit card debt. But, lowering the balances on your cards will raise your scores higher and faster, resulting in higher car insurance premiums.

Borrow money on your car to pay down credit card debt.

Most people who are struggling with bad credit already have a car that has a large loan. If you are one of those who has a decent car without a lien against it, you might consider borrowing a few thousand dollars on the value of your auto to pay off some very high interest debt. Like an equity loan, a car loan is secured with collateral. This is considered a better form of debt than credit cards to credit bureaus. A car loan that reduces credit debt makes sense only if you quit using the credit card that you pay off.

Have a relative with good credit? Add your name to one or more of their cards.

While this will appear to increase the number of credit cards and be bad for your credit rating, the reality is that having unused credit available reduces the amount of available credit that has been used. More unused credit will generally improve your credit score. If you can lower your percent of used credit to the amount of available credit, it is a good thing for your credit score. Having only 30% of possible debt is a lot better than having used up 60%.