How to Qualify for the Low Mile Car Insurance Discount

One of the ways to keep down the cost of car insurance is by taking advantages of discounts where possible. Bundling all your insurance needs with a single company is one easy way to lower the cost of car insurance. Older or cheaper cars and a good driving record will also help lower your car insurance rates. But the low mile discount may save you significant money as well.

Since our family doesn't drive much, we qualify for the low mile discount. A low mileage discount is a special rate given to motorists who drive their cars beneath a certain mileage limit. To qualify for our insurance company's reduced insurance rate, we limit the mileage on our cars to under 10,000 a year per car, which really isn't that hard to do. You can do it, too! Here's how our family has altered our driving habits to qualify for the low mileage discount on several of our cars.

Designate a primary vehicle for driving.
If your family has several cars like ours does, an easy way to limit the mileage on the cars is to designate one car as the "primary" car and drive the others as backup or on short trips. The primary car is the vehicle to drive on family vacations, bringing the kids to practice and music lessons and all those other errands that burn up the mileage.

At our house, whoever does the most driving that day takes our sedan. This keeps the mileage off the other cars, which keeps them under the limit for the low mileage discount.

Explore alternate transit options.
Keeping down the mileage also means tapping into other transportation options. Instead of relying on the cars, our family rides bikes or the city bus when possible. Carpooling and RideShare programs are other alternatives worth exploring that can help limit the miles on your family's designated "low mileage" cars.

Switch to storage rates where possible.
Most insurance companies offer special storage policies for very low mileage cars. Our company charges me $12 a month to insure our two collectible cars, both which are driven less than 500 miles each per year. If your family has several cars, garaging the ones that aren't being used very much can also save you money.

From our own experience, qualifying for a low mileage discount really isn't that hard to do. By putting the mileage on our primary car and watching the distance driven on our remaining cars, we were able to drop our car insurance premiums by 25 percent, and so can you!