As car insurance premiums soar, everything you need to know to save up to £328 a year

DRIVERS are facing a huge jump in insurance costs, with premiums up by 17 per cent year on year.

Analysis of the cheapest quotes offered to thousands of motorists found the average cost of cover is now £877, up from £744 last year, according to Consumer Intelligence.

Leah Milner explains how to swerve the price rises.

Why has insurance gone up?

At the start of this year, new rules came into force banning insurers from charging an existing customer more than they would a new one in exactly the same circumstances.

Experts predicted this would push up prices for those who always shop around for car insurance.

But the hope was that prices would go down for the many drivers who stick with the same insurer year on year.

You still need to shop around: Unfortunately, the new rules don’t mean you can sit back and let your insurance automatically renew each year.

Failing to shop around means you could miss out on savings of on average £328 a year, says Comparethemarket.

The best time to look is around 23 days before your renewal date.

Use several sites: Different comparison sites feature a different range of insurers so if you really want to get the best price it’s worth checking more than one.

You can also get a cash bonus of up to £39 if you first log in to a cashback site like Topcashback or Quidco before clicking through to a comparison service.

To get the best range of quotes, search on Comparethemarket   first, then Money-supermarket and Confused.com in that order, recommends MoneySavingExpert.com.

Direct Line is not on comparison sites so you might want to check its prices.

Tweak, don’t cheat: Young motorists might be able to save by adding an older, more experienced friend or relative to their policy as a named driver.

But don’t make them the main driver unless they really are, or you’ll be committing fraud.

Some can also save money by tweaking their job title, so long as it accurately describes what they do.

MoneySavingExpert has a job picker tool that offers suggestions.

More money savers: If you’ve got more than one car in your family, a multi-car policy can sometimes work out cheaper.

New drivers pay the highest premiums but can often make savings with “telematics” policies that monitor how well you drive.

Pay annually rather than monthly if you can, otherwise you’ll be charged interest. Don’t overstate your mileage.

You can get an accurate estimate by comparing the milometer readings on your two most recent MOT certificates.

Once you’ve found the cheapest quote, call your existing insurer to see if it will match or better the price.