What Auto Insurance Discounts Are Available In Georgia?

October 29, 2007 by fashun · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Insurance Discounts 

Is your car safe? It doesn’t have to be as safe as this little car, dodging flying cows and avoiding tornadoes, but a certain degree of safety should be expected from any vehicle, and the standards are only getting higher. Not only will a safe car aid in avoiding accidents, but if you have one then you can also expect a  auto insurance premium discount. People with safer cars file fewer claims, so they naturally are charged less on their car insurance premium. However, the more safe your car is, the more expensive it usually is as well, and more expensive cars do cost more. The auto insurance discount is higher for safe cars, but to get the best deal you should check in with a car that’s at least a couple of years old.

Here are a few things you should look at in regards to safety when you’re trying to buy a good car that will have a low auto insurance rate.

  • How well does it wreck?

A big factor in a car’s insurance quote is its crash worthiness, which is determined by government crash tests. To find out how well your future vehicle does on these tests, you can go to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety website, where they have crash test results for side impact, front impact, injuries, and more.

  • How is it built?

There are two factors under this category that will affect your vehicle’s safety and as a result your insurance quote, and they are

  • Structure. The body of the car and the material that this body is made of can determine how well a car holds up in a crash via things called crush zones.
  • Big and heavy, or small and light. How large and how heavy a car is can determine how much damage it causes or receives. A smaller car is more easily damaged, and a larger car more easily causes damage.
  • Restraints.

These tend to be a given on any car, but they should be taken for granted. Restraints have caused the largest decline in injuries and deaths from car accidents, and it is unlikely to see anything that will work as well as a simple seat belt.

Other types of restraint devices include air bags, which can be placed in various areas of the vehicle. They work best when they are combined with seat belts, especially shoulder restraints which protect the person from the force of the air bag as well. Georgia auto insurance companies are actually required to have discounts for seat belts and air bags, even though almost all cars have them.

Active head restraints are also helpful. They protect your neck from breaking by being jerked back from the force of the crash. They can usually be adjusted according to height.

  • Anti lock disc brakes.

Anti lock disc brakes are part of a new wave of panic compensation technology that help you from getting into an accident when conditions cause you to panic. For example, if you’re driving on an icy road and the person in front of you stops suddenly, then you might hit the brakes quickly as well to avoid crashing. In a normal car, this action could cause skidding and you might end up worse than if you hadn’t hit the brakes at all. With anti lock disc brakes, though, the system keeps the wheels from locking up and allows you to make sudden stops safely. Aside from that, many insurance companies provide discounts for them.

  • Daytime running lights.

Many people might not realize the impact of these lights, because they don’t see why someone would need lights during the day, but daytime running lights help set a vehicle apart from its background and thus make it more noticeable. They do, in fact, lower the incidence of daytime car accidents.