At a glance
How can you lower your car insurance premium in Greece?
To lower a car insurance premium in Greece, compare companies on the same package, ask for the price of a year paid at once, and drop covers you do not use. Naming a false main driver or hiding an old claim does not lower the price safely: it can leave you without cover.
- Ask for the price of a year paid at once and the price by the quarter. The cover stays the same; only the way you pay changes.
- Changing company can give the biggest drop: companies price the same driver and the same package differently.
- Look for covers in your package that you do not use, such as a replacement car in a two-car household or luggage cover.
- A garage, an alarm and low mileage matter only where the company asks about them, and mostly for the covers of your own car.
- A higher excess on comprehensive is a trade, not a discount: you pay less every year and more on the day of the claim.
- Naming someone else as the main driver, or hiding an old claim, is a false declaration. It can leave you without cover on the day of the claim.
The first three work immediately. The last two are traps.
They work
1. Pay annually
The easiest change there is: ask for the price of the year paid at once, next to the price by the quarter. Nothing changes in the cover. Why the quarter can cost more.
2. Change company
It is the change that can give the biggest drop, and the least popular one. Companies price the same driver with exactly the same package differently, so ask two or three for a price before you renew. Renewing with the same company “because that is how it has always gone” is the most expensive habit in the business.
3. Check what you pay for and do not use
Look at your policy. A package can carry covers you never chose one by one: a replacement car in a household with two cars, luggage cover, personal accident with sums that mean nothing. None is a huge number on its own; together they add up.
They work less than you think
4. Garage, alarm, kilometres
They count only where the company asks about them, and mostly for theft and comprehensive cover, the covers that pay for your own car. Third-party liability pays for the damage you cause to others, so a garage changes little there. Ask the company whether they change your price at all.
5. A higher excess on comprehensive
It really does lower the premium, but it is a trade and not a discount: you pay less every year and more on the day of the claim. It only makes sense if the excess is an amount you could find tomorrow without thinking about it.
Traps
6. Naming someone else as the main driver
Putting your parent down as the main driver while you do the driving can lower the price. It is called fronting, and it is a false declaration. The law asks you to declare every fact you know that matters to the risk. If you hide one on purpose, the company can end the policy at once, it can refuse to pay your own claim, and you owe it any loss it suffered1. On third-party liability the person you injured is still paid: the company cannot use the contract against the victim, but it can then sue the insured, the policyholder and the driver for the money2. You pay premiums for years in order not to be insured on the day you need it.
7. Not declaring an old claim
A “no claims” declaration that does not hold up does not give you a cheaper policy. It breaks the same duty to declare. If the company finds it, it can end the policy, and a claim can go unpaid or be paid in part1.
The same rule for both: any method that relies on the company not noticing something is a method of not being insured. The product is the payment of the claim; whatever undermines that is not a discount.
See the market average for car insurance and the companies
