- Save up to £228.64** on your car insurance
- Enjoy a whole year of Meerkat Meals & Meerkat Movies*
- Price cuts and discounts on car insurance with selected providers
**Based on Online independent research by Consumer Intelligence during November 2020. 50% of customers could achieve this saving on their car insurance through Compare the Market.
Did you know you could save up to £228** when you compare car insurance with Compare the Market? Our comparison service is quick and easy to use: just enter your details and see if you could find a cheaper car insurance deal for your new vehicle or beat your current insurance provider’s renewal quote.
**Based on Online independent research by Consumer Intelligence during November 2020. 50% of customers could achieve this saving on their car insurance through Compare the Market.
If you’re looking for cheap car insurance, you can find a range of price cuts across selected providers. Just look for our price cut banner when comparing quotes, to see which of our insurance providers could offer you a discount.
Because of coronavirus restrictions, you might be spending less time on the road, which could affect your car insurance and breakdown cover. Restrictions are also affecting other aspects of driving. To help answer any questions you might have in these confusing times, we’ve put together the latest information on coronavirus and motoring.
One of the easiest ways to find cheap car insurance is to compare quotes with us. We’ll show you great deals from a variety of the UK’s most trusted insurance providers. You can compare policies based on price, cover level, or annual or monthly payment.
But there are plenty of things you could do to help you save money:
For more ideas, check out our top tips for cheap car insurance.
The type of insurance you need depends on the level of cover you want. There are three levels of cover.
This is the minimum level of cover you need to legally drive on UK roads. Third party insurance only covers the cost of compensating other people for injury or damage you cause. It doesn’t provide you with any financial help for injury or repairs to your vehicle.
Third party, fire and theft provides cover if your car is stolen or damaged by fire.
Covers the cost of damage or injury to third parties, but could also compensate you if your car is damaged due to fire or theft, or if it’s stolen. It won’t cover you for the costs of damage to your own car in an accident.
Get more detail about third party, fire and theft insurance.
Fully comprehensive insurance offers drivers the most complete cover.
Includes all the cover of a third party fire and theft policy, but could also protect you as a driver and may pay out for damage to your car. It could also include compensation for medical treatment, legal expenses and accidental damage.
See more on what’s included in comprehensive car insurance.
It’s worth knowing that comprehensive insurance isn’t always the most expensive type of car insurance, even though it offers the most cover.
Depending on your circumstances, you might want to look into:
The situation continues to develop and is likely to continue that way for the foreseeable future. Some of these changes may affect your car insurance. The most recent government advice is to stay in your home unless you have an essential reason to go outside. If you do need to drive at this time, you will still need insurance.
You need car insurance as it can provide you with cover if you’re involved in a car accident. It’s also a legal requirement if you own or drive a car, unless you declare the vehicle off-road (SORN) and keep it on private property.
If you’re caught without car insurance, you could be fined a minimum of £300 and given six penalty points. If you end up in court, you might be given an unlimited fine and disqualified from driving.
If you’re new to driving, you’ll find your insurance is more expensive than for people with more driving experience. The reason for this is that new drivers are considered more of a risk by insurance providers. This is partly because of inexperience, but mainly because most new drivers are young drivers – and a quarter of young drivers will be involved in an accident in the first two years of being on the road.
There are ways you can reduce the cost of your insurance – telematics policies can be cheaper, for example.
If your car is involved in an accident, car insurance could provide cover for:
Not all car insurance policies offer the same cover, so always read the small print and make sure you’re happy with any exclusions or limitations.
Whether it’s better to pay for your premium annually or each month will depend on your circumstances.
Paying an annual lump sum is usually cheaper than paying monthly. A monthly payment plan could mean you pay more as you might be charged interest on the instalments.
The insurance provider will carry out a credit check if you want to pay for your car insurance monthly. Providers will also look at your credit score (a 'soft search') when you compare insurance quotes, but this is just to check your details and won’t affect your score.
You can estimate your mileage by working out how many miles you drive every day or week, then adding them up to work out your annual use. Alternatively, check your MOT certificate or car service record, which will show how many miles you’ve driven. You can use this as a basis to calculate your future mileage.
The number of miles you drive per year can affect your car insurance premium. This is because the more you drive, the more of a risk the provider considers you to be. It’s important to be as accurate as you can when you estimate your mileage for your car insurance. If you guess and underestimate your mileage, it could invalidate your policy. If you overestimate you could end up paying more than you need to.
When you compare car insurance with us and enter your registration number, where possible we’ll give you a valuation figure based on the car’s market value at the time – the amount you’d receive if your car was written off. Alternatively, you can use a free online tool to find out your car’s current value or look at used-car listings to see the prices of similar models of a similar age, condition and mileage.
Factors that impact car insurance include:
It depends on the insurance provider. When you compare with us, you can save your searches, but you won’t necessarily get the price that you saved when you come back to buy your policy. Some insurance quotes last as long as 60 days, but some can change at any point.
If you cancel within the 14-day cooling-off period, you might have to pay an admin fee but you’ll get a refund minus the days the policy was active for. If you cancel later on, you may have to pay cancellation fees and admin fees. You may or may not get a refund, depending on the circumstances and whether you pay for your policy annually or monthly.
Find out everything you need to know about cancelling car insurance
You don’t have to make a claim if you have an accident, or for something else covered by your policy, but you must always let your insurance provider know if you’ve had an accident - whether you claim or not. If you don’t tell them, you could invalidate your policy.
If you decide to make a claim:
There’s a few reasons why an insurance provider might not pay out. It might be that:
If your claim is turned down and you don’t think it’s justified, you can take action. Find out what to do if your car insurance provider won’t pay out.
It’s almost certain that it will – in fact, your premium may go up even if you have an accident and don’t make a claim, because the insurance provider might consider there’s more of a risk of you being in another accident. If you’ve protected your no claims discount that shouldn’t be affected, but your basic premium is still likely to go up.
See more on how an accident can affect your car insurance premium.
The excess is the amount the policyholder has to pay towards a claim on their insurance. There are two elements to car insurance excess:
Telematics or ‘black box’ insurance uses technology to monitor the way you drive and transmits the data to your insurance provider. If you drive safely, it could lead to cheaper car insurance. Telematics works either through a GPS device – the black box – fitted in your car or a smartphone app. These record things like how you corner, brake, your speed and the time of day and how far you drive.
Black box insurance can be particularly useful for young and inexperienced drivers. It can give insurance providers evidence that you’re a safe driver and could reduce your premiums.
Find out about telematics insurance.
If you share your car with one of your parents, having them on your policy as a ‘named’ or additional driver could reduce your premium. But they mustn’t be on the policy as the main driver if they’re not. This is a type of fraud called fronting and is illegal.
A no claims bonus – also called a no claims discount or NCD – builds up every year you have car insurance without making a claim. You can accrue up to five years and sometimes more, depending on the insurance provider. Your NCD can cut the cost of your car insurance when you renew. You can also opt to protect it so that it’s not affected if you do make a claim.
Our latest Premium Drivers Report suggests that insurance premiums have fallen during the UK's coronavirus lockdown.
The average premium now stands at £707^^.
For drivers aged 17-24, the average premium is £1,154^^^.
Find out how much you could expect to pay with our car insurance calculator.
^^Compare the Market, Premium Drivers Index, December 2020.
^^^50% of young drivers between 17-24 years old could achieve a quote of up to £1154 for their car insurance based on Compare the Market data in November 2020.
Insurance providers base the cost of your premium on the risk they face. So, for example, if you’ve made claims in the past, you’re liable to pay more than someone with a long history of no claims.
Fully comprehensive car insurance could cost from
£622
per year***
Learner driver car insurance could cost from
£547
per year****
Over 50s car insurance could cost from
£304
per year*****
***50% of people could achieve a quote of £621.08 per year for their fully comprehensive car insurance based on Compare the Market data in November 2020.
****50% of learner drivers between 17-24 years old could achieve a quote of up to £547 for their car insurance based on Compare the Market data in November 2020.
*****50% of over 50s could achieve a quote of up to £304 for their car insurance based on Compare the Market data in November 2020.
And that’s just the average. The cost of car insurance depends on a number of things. The price reflects the risk the insurance provider faces, so factors in things such as how expensive your car would be to replace or repair, the value of the car, how likely it is to be stolen, whether you’re a driver who abides by the law, how many miles you drive and so on.
When you shop around with Compare the Market, you could find cheaper policies.
To get a car insurance quote, you’ll need to tell us about:
Get covered for everything from a broken windscreen to legal expenses with these optional extras.
50% of consumers could save up to £228**
5 minutes to get a quote^^^^
29.20% of consumers could save up to 42% on their premium†
**Based on Online independent research by Consumer Intelligence during November 2020. 50% of customers could achieve this saving on their car insurance through Compare the Market.
^^^^On average it can take less than 5 minutes to complete a car quote through Compare the Market based on data in November 2020.
†29.20% of new car insurance customers achieved this average saving through Compare the Market, according to independent research carried out by Consumer Intelligence during November 2020.
From the Motor team
"The most competitive prices out there are typically offered around three weeks before your policy end date. So don’t leave comparing to the last minute."
We compare prices from 132 car insurance provider products^^^^^ to help you get a great quote. See the options available to you in one go, without visiting lots of insurance provider websites, to see how they stack up against one another for you and your car. You can get quotes in just 5 minutes^^^^.
^^^^On average it can take less than 5 minutes to complete a car quote through Compare the Market based on data in November 2020.
^^^^^Correct as of November 2020.
There are 50 car insurance groups. Your car is in one of them and, in general, the higher the group, the higher your car insurance premium is likely to be.
If you’re curious about what group your car’s in or you want to check the group before you buy a new car, then our car insurance group checker is here to help. Just input a few details about your car – such as its make, model and year – and we can tell you what group it’s in.