by: Thomas Ajava

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Car insurance is a funny thing. Most people can't stand paying for it. Only when they need it are they really happy that they did. While everyone complains about the amount they pay in premiums, the truth is you can do a lot to lower those amounts. In this article, we take a look at the issue of how filing claims against the insurance policies will affect your car insurance rates.

There are two very distinct views when it comes to car insurance. Some people view their policy as a pool of money that they can access whenever they need to. Others view it as a financial tool that should be used only as last resort. Your attitude toward your car insurance goes along way to establishing how much you're going to pay in premiums. For some reason, this is a big surprise to most people. It should not be. Let's take a closer look at how this works.

Let's say you're fresh out of college and you have a job. You living in an apartment in a decent part of town. Unfortunately, you don't have a garage. You come out of your house one morning to drive to work and noticed a dent in the side of your door. The dent isn't too bad, but it's clear that the paint is scraped and the door is dinged in. What do you do? You really have two options. The first is to take it to a repair shop and get it repaired with your own money. The second is to take it to your insurance company and have them deal with it. The first option is going to cost you more in the short term, but the second option may cost you in the long-term.

The more often you file claims under insurance policies, the higher your premium rates are going to go. Why is this? Well, think it through. The more often there are claims on the policy, the more money the insurance company has to spend. You can bet the insurance company is going to be paying close attention to how much money they're spending on your policies. Once they realize that they're spending more and more money, they're going to do one of two things. The first is to raise your premium rates the next time you renew your insurance. If you really go nuts with your claims, they will simply cancel your policy.

So, how do you know if you're making too many claims under policy? The average for all insured motorists in the United States is one claim approximately every 11 years. Yes, 11 years! Once your insurance premium rates start going up because of excessive claims, it can be very difficult to get them to come back down. As a result, you want to be really careful of making claims.

You buy car insurance for a reason. It is important that you figure out what that reason is. If you hate paying high premiums, take care of small repairs on your own. If you don't really care how large your premiums are, then you can make as many claims as you like. It is up to you.



About The Author
Thomas Ajava writes about auto insurance for http://www.autoownersinsurancecompanies.com - where you can find auto insurance companies across the country.