How well would you say you know your auto insurance policy? Are you intimate friends? Or casual acquaintances that only dust off your familiarity once a year when renewal time rolls around? If you haven’t taken the time to get to know your auto insurance lately now would be a great time to get started-if for no other reason than the fact that you don’t know your insurance policy well could be paving the path to paying way too much for your auto insurance policy.

There are many things auto insurance companies use to figure out your insurance premiums, but all of those factors generally fall into one of the following four categories:

1)      You as a person. Believe it or not, your auto insurance provider really does care about who you are as a human being. As opposed to just about all of the other service providers you’ll do business with, who see you as just a number. Just ask Brad Paisley all about it. (“The World”, for those of you who aren’t big country fans.)

Your job, where you live, how much time you spend on the road going to and from work, your grades and your credit score are all going to factor in when it’s time to decide how much you’re going to pay for your auto insurance coverage. 

2)      You as a driver. Your driving history is going to have a HUGE impact on your insurance premiums. Huge. A single traffic violation or accident and you’re going to watch your monthly premium payments go soaring. If you keep your record clean, on the other hand, you’ll usually be eligible for a five year good driver discount from just about any of the auto insurance companies currently operating in the United States. 

3)      Your car. Did you know that your car has almost as much to do with how much you’re going to be paying for your insurance coverage as you do? Seriously. If your car is going to cost your insurance carrier a small fortune to replace you’re going to be paying a lot more for your coverage. The same rule applies if your car is on the National Insurance Institute’s Top Ten “No-No’s” for insurance companies. (These are the top ten makes and models of car in the U.S. statistically most likely to be involved in an accident or a theft.)

Driving a small, inexpensive car that tends to keep itself out of trouble, on the other hand, will go a long way toward smoothing the road to cheap auto insurance.

4)      Your insurance coverage and deductible. It’s a simple fact into today’s society-you get what you pay for, and that applies to your auto insurance rates just as much as it does the cake you ordered for Aunt Judith’s 90th birthday bash. (Think party of Frodo Baggins proportions here!) If you want to have higher liability, comprehensive and collision coverage (which you do) you’re going to have to pay for it.

Raising your deductible, on the other hand, will go a long way toward decreasing the cost of your insurance coverage and giving you the highway protection you need at auto insurance rates you can afford.