Receiving a letter in the mail from your insurance company is rarely a pleasant experience. Those letters often come with unexpected and unwanted information, like a warning that your premiums are going to go up. If you are the unwitting recipient of one of those rate increase letters, you may want to use this unpleasant news as an excuse to purchase better coverage at a more affordable price.

The reasons auto insurance companies raise your rates are many, and often those rate increases have nothing to do with you personally. You could have a clean driving record and no claims history and still be the victim of a company-wide rate increase. If you are in fact a good driver with no claims history, you have even more reason to look for a better deal. It could just be that your current auto insurance company isn’t very good at managing money and determining risk, and if that’s the case, you probably don’t want to continue working with them anyway.

Gather your information

If you receive a letter stating that your rates are going up, read it carefully to determine exactly when the rate increase will take effect. Your premiums most likely won’t increase until your next coverage period begins, so you may have a few weeks, or even a few months, before you start to see those higher premiums eat into your cash flow.

Your next step should be to find a copy of your most recent insurance policy. You must have the actual policy, not just the insurance card. This is because you will need the information on the insurance policy detail pages to determine your current level of coverage. You should see a page that lists each type of coverage you have for you and your vehicles, including comprehensive and collision coverage, property damage and liability, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Note the levels of each type of coverage, as well as the level of deductible for each. You can use those levels of coverage when you buy a new, more affordable auto insurance policy.

compare online

Once you’ve gathered as much information as possible about your current policy, your next step is to find a quality online auto insurance comparison tool. There are many of these tools available, and they work by letting you enter your information and then submitting that information to all the auto insurers they work with. These online tools can be a great way to collect multiple quotes for the coverage you need.

Once you’ve found a suitable online comparison tool, enter all of your current policy information, including coverage limits for each type of insurance protection. Please review those entries carefully before submitting information, as an error in those coverage levels could cause the quotes you receive to be inaccurate. After you submit your information, you should start receiving quotes from various insurance companies, and you can use that information to find the best coverage for the lowest possible price.