Driving a car has become a necessity. Commuting to work, going to places, visiting friends and family, there are a lot of reasons why one would need to go from point A to point B. In the real world, this simple “going from point A to B” is not that simple at all. Driving a car without a liability insurance policy is illegal in almost every state, and there’s no denying how expensive auto insurance policies can be.
So is there a way to reduce this cost of insuring your car? If you factor in the cost of commuting daily to work with the added cost of ever-rising gas prices, you’ll be shelling out thousands of dollars every year just to go from point A to point B. But if you switch your work schedule, you could save thousands of dollars every year on auto insurance and gas.
Ever since the pandemic, the world has shifted to a new schedule, both in work and lifestyle. And no matter how much we hate this pandemic, it has brought a lot of positive changes in the way people work. A hybrid work schedule can be excellent in helping you save a lot of money. Here’s how having a hybrid work schedule can save you money on car insurance.
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Drive Less, Save More
There is a big problem with how people choose their auto insurance policy. Let’s consider gas prices. If you use 5 gallons of gas every week, you pay for just 5 gallons of gas, right? Would you consider paying for 20 gallons of gas even though you’d only use 5 gallons? You wouldn’t. But that’s not the case with auto insurance policies.
Auto insurance policies are priced differently for different people. Insurance companies consider multiple factors while deciding the price of the auto insurance policy. Some of the most impactful factors that affect the rate of auto insurance are:
- Your driving record
- Previous insurance claims
- Traffic violations
- Area, city, state you live in
- Credit score
- Age
- Gender
- Type of car
There are a lot of other factors which go beyond this article that will affect your auto insurance rate. The essence of this price difference is this; Auto insurance companies charge more for insurance to people who are more likely to get in a car accident and make an insurance claim. Higher the risk, the higher the price.
How Hybrid Work Helps
Let’s say that your commute from work and drive around 30 miles every day. This makes your monthly mileage around 720 miles (excluding Sundays), and your yearly mileage will be around 8640 miles. That’s a lot of miles driven. Add the gas prices and you are losing money like a hot air balloon with hundreds of holes in it loses air.
Hybrid work is when you don’t go to your office every day. Instead, your office visiting days are limited to only one or two days per week. This means that you won’t be using your car on other days. Now let’s calculate how many miles you’ll drive with this hybrid work schedule.
With two days every week, and a daily mileage of around 30 miles, your monthly mileage will be 240 miles, and your yearly mileage would be 2,880 miles. That’s a reduction of almost 67% in your mileage. Imagine how much money you’d save on gas expenditure alone. But that’s not all. Now let’s see how this would help you save money on your car insurance policy.
Pay-Per-Mile Auto Insurance
Since auto insurance companies rely on the risk of a policyholder getting in a car accident and making a claim to decide the cost of auto insurance, it makes sense to consider how much a person drives as a big factor in deciding the risk. If a person drives more, the risk of him/her getting in a car accident is also more. But general car insurance policies do not take this as a factor.
This is where pay-per-mile or usage-based auto insurance policies come in. Pay-per-mile auto insurance policies calculate the cost of your auto insurance based on how many miles you drive during the policy period. The more you drive, the more you pay. But in the case of a hybrid work schedule, the less you drive, the less you pay.
How the Rates are Calculated
The insurance company will take in other factors such as your driving record, past insurance claims, etc to calculate the per-mile rate for you. Different states have different methods for calculating the rate. For example, if you live in Texas, then to get the most affordable car insurance plans, look for cheap car insurance in Texas. Once it is calculated, then the company will take important information from your car’s systems to calculate the rates.
For example, the insurance company could give a device that connects to your car’s OBD II port, and this device would collect important information such as your driving speeds, rate of acceleration, breaking patterns, etc to determine how you drive (safely or rashly). Along with this, it also reads how many miles you’ve driven during the policy period (which is usually a month).
At the end of the month, your total mileage will be multiplied by your per-mile rate and that would be your car insurance price. Pay-per-mile auto insurance can save you hundreds of dollars, and not just saving, it prevents you from overpaying. Why should you pay more if you don’t drive your car too often?
Usage-based auto insurance rates are a great way of saving money on car insurance policies if you have a hybrid work schedule and don’t drive your car too often. But it can only save you money if your monthly mileage is low. If your yearly mileage is more than 7,000 miles, then getting this auto insurance policy would not be a smart choice.
