Car insurance premiums have been falling this year, but they still remain high – with the average driver paying 40% more for cover than two years ago, according to industry data.  

In a bid to reduce these costs, three in 10 drivers have taken to stretching the truth when applying for insurance, suggests new research by The Green Insurer. 

Here, we take a look at the white lies drivers most commonly tell to obtain cheaper cover, and outline 10 legitimate ways you can bring down the cost of car insurance.

Drivers stretch the truth when applying for insurance

In a survey of 1,057 drivers, 29% admitted to being untruthful about some of their circumstances when applying for cover. 

Of these, 63% either slightly or significantly understated the number of miles they drive each year. Other common mistruths involved drivers claiming their car is parked in a garage or that it isn’t used for work purposes.

Source: Findings from a survey of 1,057 adults from a survey by Viewsbank, on the behalf of The Green Insurer, in August 2024.

• Find out more:what’s happening to car insurance premiums?

Struggling with price hikes

65% of drivers surveyed by The Green Insurer reported having been affected by premium increases in recent years. 

Most had taken various actions to reduce prices – with 79% saying they’d shopped around for the cheapest premium, 18% increased their excesses or removed add-on cover, and 9% took younger or older family members off their policies.

More drastically, 5% had either sold their current car and bought a cheaper one, or had given up driving altogether.

The potential consequences of ‘white lies’

While it can seem like a white lie to ‘tweak’ certain details about your circumstances for a better quote, being dishonest when applying for insurance is technically a form of fraud. And if it’s discovered, the consequences can be severe. 

If you’re found to have misrepresented details that the insurer has used to determine your price, it may decline to pay your claim or cancel your policy. 

As well as costing you in the short term (for example if you need to make a claim), having a policy cancelled for misleading your insurer has longer-term consequences, affecting your ability to get insurance in the future and the price you’ll pay for cover. 

10 tactics to legitimately bring down your premium

Fortunately, there are plenty of steps you can take to reduce your premium without misrepresenting yourself or falling foul of the law. 

Here are 10 tactics worth trying at renewal that could shave hundreds off your renewal price.

1. Buy your insurance early

You can buy your insurance up to a month before your cover is due to start. Generally speaking, the earlier you buy the better the quote.

According to research by Go.Compare, the cheapest day to buy cover is 26 days before the renewal is due. Customers who buy their insurance on the day it’s due pay an average of 55% more.

2. Check your policy fits your needs

When you buy your insurance, you’ll be offered plenty of add-ons, such as breakdown cover or a courtesy car.

Many of these can be valuable, but give some thought to what your needs are. If you can manage without your car for a few weeks during a claim, you might not need to pay for a temporary replacement car from the insurer. 

Similarly, before bundling in breakdown cover, check you don’t have it already (for example as part of a packaged bank account) or that you can’t get a better or more suitable standalone policy.

3. Check the different channels

How you buy your car insurance – for instance, directly via the insurer’s website, using a comparison website, or over the phone – can make a difference to the price you’re charged.

Buying over the phone is usually the most expensive of these channels of purchase, and policies tend to be cheapest online or via comparison websites.

For this reason, it makes sense to shop around online every year – not just to check on other insurers’ prices, but also to see if your own provider is offering better prices through other channels.

Crucially, though, note that sometimes insurers sell different versions of their policies – with different levels of cover – through different channels. So before finalising your purchase, carefully check that the policy you’re buying contains the cover you want.

4. Include a voluntary excess

Most policies allow you to add a voluntary excess to bring down the premium. Of course, this isn’t free money: the higher the excess, the more you’ll need to pay in the event you make a claim. 

Consequently, your total excess (the voluntary excess you’ve chosen plus any compulsory excess that applies to your cover) must be no more than you can afford to pay at short notice if a claim is necessary.

5. Look at your occupation options

While 8% of those who’ve admitted being dishonest said they’d lied about their occupation, there can be multiple legitimate ways to describe what you do for a living. These options can have an effect on your premium.

For example, it may cost less to describe yourself as a ‘cook’ than a ‘chef’, or you may be paying more by declaring yourself to be an ‘engineer’ rather than something more specific like an ‘electrical engineer’.

You must be telling (and not stretching) the truth with what you say, but if several options accurately apply, check if any of them would lead to you paying more than you need to for your cover.

6. Add named drivers

It might seem a little counterintuitive, but putting additional drivers on your policy may reduce its price.

If the insurer knows that whenever the car is driven, it’s by a driver it considers risky, the premium will entirely reflect this high risk. 

However, if it knows that some of the time an apparently safer driver uses the car, the price will reflect a blend of these different levels of risk.

So if your premium is high because you fall into a high-risk group (for example, if you’re young or an inexperienced driver), it could be worth adding other lower-risk drivers, such as your parents, onto the policy, to see if this helps bring down the cost.

What you mustn’t do is add someone else as the ‘main driver’ when you’ll be driving the car most of the time. This is known as ‘fronting’ and is a type of fraud. 

7. Include your driving licence number

While it’s usually not mandatory to do so, most insurers now ask you to share your driving licence number when you apply for cover.

Doing so can lead to a discounted price. Insurers can check your licence to verify the details you’ve provided about your driving history, making them more confident in the accuracy of the information they have about you.

8. Haggle

This is an old (and probably familiar) tip, but it still works and can potentially shave significant amounts off your premium. 

If you’re unhappy with your renewal price, contact your insurer to ask it (politely) to explain why it’s as high as it is, and if it would be prepared to reduce it to keep your custom.

It will help if you’ve done a little shopping around first, so you can talk about what its rivals are offering. 

9. Buy annual cover

As prices have gone up, more drivers have needed to pay for their insurance in monthly instalments to keep costs manageable. Unfortunately, most insurers charge interest for this privilege – sometimes at rates as high as 45% APR. This adds substantially to the overall price.

One way of paying monthly for your insurance while circumventing these interest rates is to buy the insurance on a credit card with an interest-free period of a year or longer, and then pay off that balance over 12 months.

Importantly, you’ll need to make these payments during that period to avoid paying interest.

• Find out more: best interest-free purchase credit cards

10. Try a broker (but avoid ‘ghost brokers’)

If you’re really struggling to find affordable insurance, you might benefit from some professional help. 

A broker’s job is to match your insurance needs with the best available price. Brokers will usually have access to deals and prices that aren’t available directly to customers.

However, some scammers (typically operating on social media) pose as brokers and sell fake or dishonestly obtained cover to customers. In some cases, the deception isn’t noticeable until the customer tries to claim.

To find a legitimate specialist broker, visit the British Insurance Brokers’ Association website or call 0370 950 1790.

• For more tips on how to get the cheapest deal, see our packed guide to finding cheap car insurance.

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