The beginning of the year is full of many things to look out for in your life. There is the “Back to School” period, the “Bundle of Joy” going back to school photo posting. We then tend to forget another important part of our daily life and that’s looking after our car ownership experience. Herein below are the list of things we at iMoto Media feel car owners (especially those new to the car ownership experience) need to consider in their ownership experience:
- Price increase annually: Look around for the best insurance monthly cover and don’t just accept the annual price increase your current insurance “dumps’ on you every year. This is especially relevant if you haven’t claimed in the past 24 months (2 years). If you haven’t changed cars in that period, meaning there are no value changes to your car, you can use that to negotiate a better monthly rate with your insurance or get quotes from other insurance companies. Its important that you ensure your cover protections doesn’t change i.e. the extensive cover terms you have been enjoying should not be changed for a lower instalment.
- Change of details: Update your insurance company if there are changes to your details especially those that are used when your insurance company assesses your risk profile. Your address plays a major part in your risk profiling and so if there are changes to your address (new rental lease or new house), you need to inform your insurance of these changes. You might take it for granted that your house does not have a fence but you have dogs, the insurance considers things like fencing as risk areas to look at when assessing your monthly instalments. You might have been renting at a complex (high walls and a gate security) which lowered your risk profile and now you have moved to a stand alone house, these might be important info details for your insurance to look at when doing your risk profile. Its also important to inform your insurance of changes to your work e.g. Sales people spend more time on the road (higher risk) but if you have been promoted to a manager (less on the road and more office time), your insurance might consider this a less risk and adjust your monthly instalments accordingly.
- License disk or drivers licence: Ensure that your drivers licence is still valid by checking your expiry date. Most people only realise their licence has expired when at the road block or when their insurance claim is been turned down due to non valid drivers licence. Its also important to check your cars licence disk to see when it expires. Remember it takes on average 3 months to get a replacement for your DRIVERS LICENCE CARD and so count back on your expiry date to accommodate this 3 months.
- Learner sign: To have a learner sign on your back window doesn’t mean “Lahla” or your are a “Laughing stock”, the L sign protects you in traffic by giving notice to other drivers that you are still a novice on the road. When you then have an issue in traffic (steep hill start), other drivers are then aware of the challenge and in most cases, they don’t put added pressure on your by hooting (trust me, there are idiots that just don’t care but those are LOSERS).
