How Veterans Can Find Cheap Car Insurance
Last Updated on December 4, 2019
When you need car insurance, you can depend upon your status as a veteran or military family to qualify you for discounts and special offers because there are programs in place for most of the major expenses out there, to give military families and veterans a break. There are all sorts of ways that a vet can save on car insurance, from companies that are specifically set up to serve military personnel to discounts from regular insurers. Understanding how these discounts work and who is offering them can save you big money on car insurance.
Why You Should Search for Military-Friendly Insurance Companies
Besides the discounts that you will get, there are other reasons that you should look for insurance companies that are friendly to veterans or military families. If you are currently active, it’s possible that you might end up being deployed overseas and you want to find a company that will allow you to suspend or end your insurance coverage without any problems and without costing you more money. Insurers that take factors into consideration like your location, your military car insurer, the length of time you’ll need the insurance and your reason for needing coverage, are the ones that you want to work with.
Finding these car insurance companies can require a little legwork but you can easily find lots of options to choose from. The first thing that you should do – if you currently have insurance through a specific company – is to find out if your current company offers a military or veteran discount. You also need to find out when you can switch to a different insurer if they don’t offer any discounts – because you will want to find an insurer that does.
After that, you can go online and check out military advocacy groups to see what they are recommending. You might be able to find an insurer that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own. From there, you will probably just have to check each insurance company that you are considering to see what kind of military discounts or offers they have. Many of them post this information on their websites.
Exclusive Veteran-Only Insurance Companies
There are also some companies out there that are exclusive to military families and veterans. USAA is one of the most well-known of these companies to offer discounts to military personnel, veterans and families, not only on car insurance, but also on a variety of financial products including credit cards. Some of the discounts and programs specific to military personnel do you can find through companies like this include a hefty discount if your car is stored on base because of how much more secure it is, and a reduction of almost 95% of your insurance premium if you store your car and are deployed overseas.
This is obviously something that you should look into because it offers such major benefits specifically to military personnel. If you are no longer active duty, there are still quite a few benefits that come from going with a company like USAA for your car insurance. Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shop around, but you should definitely look into what the company offers and decide if it is what you want. Since you are a veteran, you already qualify for their programs, so you might as well see if you can take advantage of them.
Veteran & Military Discounts from Traditional Insurance Companies
Often, you will be able to get veteran military discounts from traditional insurance companies instead, and sometimes even get a better deal. If you check out the websites of some of the major insurance providers out there, you will find that most have a page dedicated to what they offer to veterans and those on active duty in the military. Since your goal should be to get the lowest rate that you can, take advantage of any discount provided for your military service. You should consider these as carefully as you would companies that are specifically in business to serve military personnel.
The bottom line is that there are discounts out there for those in the military and for those who served in the past. With a little research, you can find better rates than you ever thought you could and discounts that you didn’t even know were available. Don’t just limit your search to checking out insurance company websites and military advocacy groups. Talk to your friends who are also veterans or in the military and find out if there is anything they can recommend, because they have may have come across a better deal for those in the military which you might not have been able to find on your own. Use every resource available to you to get the biggest discounts you can.