How I saved money on my car insurance by not doing anything

No one can really claim to understand the inner-workings of car insurance companies...

By Christopher Hofley
Word of Mouth -- Published July 24, 2007
I’ve admitted it in this column before but there are certain situations that just leave me feeling baffled.
I currently find myself in such a situation: head-scratchingly so but in a good way.
I’m not pondering the existence of God, nor am I dissecting complicated algebra equations.
Instead, I have spent the last few days wondering why I am suddenly saving money on car insurance.
No, I didn’t switch to Geico. I can’t be that easily swayed by annoying and repetitive commercials. However, I apparently managed to permanently (I think) reduce my car insurance costs by seemingly doing everything in my power to make it go up.
Not intentionally, of course, but my track record when traveling by car isn’t exactly going to get me nominated by the Ministry of Tranportation’s sainthood program.
Though I’ve never caused a car accident, I have had to file a couple of insurance claims in the past to cover damage to my car (not my fault, honest). I have also had one or two speeding tickets (or four), one of which came courtesy of a Kemptville OPP officer on VanBuren Street (I know, you think I have written enough about speeding problems on that street to know better).
That last ticket, the Kemptville one, somehow managed to escape my mind for a few months, until the ministry thought it time to give me a kick in the bumper and sent me a warning.
Then it escaped my mind for a couple more months until, on one day when it was absolutely necessary for me to use my vehicle, I got yet another notice. Not a warning this time; my license had been officially suspended.
Yep, that was a pretty good day.
Anyway, it took me a few days to get it back–those of you who saw me walking around town for a couple days will understand—and I like to think the whole experience taught me a lesson. I just figured my insurance was going to go up.
Apparently not. In fact, I just learned the other day that my insurance actually went down. Significantly.
Hence, my confusion.
Let’s not confuse things here, though. I am not complaining about this perplexing state of affairs in any way. As a male under the age of 25, my insurance is already insanely high (don’t get me started on this little example of discrimination, I’m a good driver, I swear. At least as good as a 26-year-old guy) so learning that it went down makes me feel like I won the lottery. But still, it may just be that I can’t take a good thing for what it is, but I am still giving myself a headache trying to figure out how this happened.
Good for me, I suppose. But the question remains: did excessively fast driving over the last few years and finally being beaten over the head with the consequences really teach me anything?
Only time—and the cops with the radar guns on VanBuren street—will be able to say for sure.
I’m not going to say I will never speed again—I think I made record time driving to work on Tuesday—and I probably won’t be joining a Speeders Anonymous group of any kind and I will probably eventually receive another citation for some sort of road offence. I’m not going to lie, all of these things will most likely happen.
However, there are a few things that I will pledge to do/not do, based on the above experiences.
I will, for example, always pay tickets on time. Seriously, you don’t want to go through the financial and mental hassle of getting your license back. I will also, and I would recommend that anyone reading this also do this, never again speed down VanBuren. I recently interviewed the officer who gave me that fateful ticket (on an unrelated matter) and not only did he not offer to expunge that ticket from my record or reimburse the associated expenses (I guess I can’t blame him), he also informed me that he was planning to head back out there with his radar gun to catch some more unruly drivers. And finally, I will continue to be grateful to my insurance company for not forcing me to sell my car in order to pay for it.