If you have never driven abroad then you may well think that the rules on auto insurance are much the same wherever you go, but you would be wrong. In Europe auto insurers have, historically, concentrated on certain standard criteria when assessing the risk of the person looking to buy insurance Established auto insurers would certainly take the age of the driver into consideration as most insurers in countries across the world, recognize that young drivers are usually the most accident prone and therefore are generally assessed as a higher risk category than more seasoned drivers. They may also raise their policy rates for drivers over the age of seventy as this is another category where the risk of an accident may be higher.

The second major criteria that European auto insurers concentrate on when assessing risk are the accident rates of individual drivers. Insurance companies in Europe use this criteria so that they concentrate on targeting their services towards drivers in the lower risk groups. Where they do target higher risk drivers they will set the insurance premiums at a much higher rate, which is why many younger drivers find it hard to get auto insurance as the premium costs are often beyond their means.

One of the problems with aiming the majority of their services at those groups considered to be a lower insurance risk is that these traditional European auto insurance companies often lose out to new, low cost insurance companies. The newer companies are able to offer lower priced pemiums to customers considered to be in one or other of the risk categories because they sell over the internet or through off shore call centers – which means that they don’t have the overheads of the traditional European auto insurers. Unless the traditionalists change their tactics when it comes to what they consider insurance risks then they may lose out totally to these low cost insurers.