When you're trying to reduce your insurance rates, you may tend to focus on personal factors such as your driving record or your personal credit history. However, the car you drive can have a huge impact on your auto insurance rates as well. Here's what you need to know about getting great car-insurance rates for your vehicle. 

How Insurance Companies Evaluate Car Safety

If you compare auto-insurance quotes by leaving the demographics consistent and manipulating only the type of vehicle, you may notice something surprising; the insurance rates can vary greatly by make and model. This is because each car model has gone through several safety-rating tests and been evaluated for safety features. 

For example, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducts low-impact and high-impact crash tests to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of many car models. Many insurers also compile statistics about how much the average insurance payout has been for each car model that's been involved in highway accidents. While you may not be able to determine the exact sources that your insurance company uses, you can use these types of resources as a guide to see how your car is doing in terms of car safety. From there, you can take a guess at how your car choice is affecting your auto insurance rates. 

So What Can You Do?

There are several things that you can do to make your car safer and more insurable. First of all, if you can afford to switch vehicles, you might want to do some research to determine the safest car models and make the trade. Be sure to ask for a quote from your insurance company and other auto-insurance options to make sure that your new car choice will have a big effect on your insurance rates. 

If you can't afford to make a car switch right now, there may be things that you can do with your current car to make it safer. For instance, your auto-insurance company may offer you discounts for adding crash-avoidance technology to your vehicle. Ask your current insurer what kinds of discounts they can offer. 

Finally, you may want to shop around for a different insurer. If you have determined that your current car is on the "unsafe" side, it may be driving up your premiums, but there still may be room for improvement. Since each auto insurer weighs different factors more heavily, another insurer might offer you a better deal. Talk to many insurers, such as Oliveira Gilbert C Insurance Agency Inc, to see which company can give you the best rate.