Can you buy car insurance with no deposit?  Can you put just a small sum down, and pay the balance off monthly?

You need to make at least a low payment upfront. You can pay this using your credit card, so that you don't actually have to hand over any money right away. However an insurance policy isn't legal without something in advance, so true 'no-deposit' car insurance doesn't exist if you are starting a new policy. However, if you have an existing policy your current insurer may be willing to allow you to switch to monthly payments - it's always worth asking them before you think about searching for quotes from other insurers.

We've carried out some research by making 100 price comparisons for different motorists, using several different price comparison engines, and as you can see the required sums varied considerably. Briefly: we found some insurers willing to accept a 10% down payment, and a larger number insisting on at least 20%. Quite a lot of insurers asked for even more than that. What is perhaps more important is that we found a number of motorists who admitted to having poor credit ratings not only found that their down payments were higher than average, but the interest charges they faced were raised, as well. This seems to confirm the suspicion that some insurers, at least, are carrying out background credit checks during the application. They are allowed to do this because the price comparison engines include this provision in their terms and conditions, which have to be accepted before quotations are generated.

So, the sum you will need to pay in advance is likely to vary considerably from one insurer to the next, and they are all likely to consider how much of a risk they think there is of you (a) being involved in an accident before the premium is fully paid for or (b) failing to complete the payments, which means even more uncertainty. You'll only find out when you get the quotes, so you really have to shop around to get the best offers.

Up until fairly recently it was possible to pay a twelfth of the yearly premium, plus a little more to cover finance charges. The insurers have hardened their attitudes lately and now a number of well-known companies don't offer easy payments at all.

You are likely to face finance charges, because, in effect, you are borrowing the premium. Sometimes the insurance company itself provided the 'loan', but often it is provided by specialist finance companies. It is generally accepted that you would, on average, pay more than 11% extra for your policy. This is what is called a 'flat rate' however, and is not the same as an  APR of 11%. This is because the sum you owe falls gradually, as you make your monthly payments; for example, after six months from starting the policy you should only owe about half of the original sum, and after 9 months just a quarter or so. An APR is charged on just the balance outstanding, whilst the flat rate you are charged is based on the whole amount that you originally borrowed.  A flat rate of 11% actually equals an APR of about 19.7%.

Apart from that, the cheapest priced insurer is rarely the one that offers the lowest pre-payment. If you want to put down as little as possible initially, you will probably have to accept a policy that costs more than you would have to pay, if you paid for a year upfront.  A number of insurers who don't now offer monthly repayments are amongst the most competitively priced companies, so there may be several of the best offers which are, therefore, unavailable to you. This means that, in exchange for paying monthly, you could end up paying considerably more for your insurance than you would if you able to choose a cheaper policy by paying in advance.

If you can raise the money from another source, you may not only find yourself paying a lower interest rate, but you could have more choice of policies. By being able to pick the best policy to suit your needs, regardless of whether or not the insurer offers monthly repayment terms, you might be able to save yourself a lot of money. If you could get an interest-free credit card to cover the premium then so much the better; companies like confused.com, the AA or comparethemarket.com offer credit card price comparisons and you may find your best deal through one of them.

There was no single site that was cheaper than the rest for every applicant. This means that if you really want to find the lowest quotes, and the smallest deposits, you really need to try multiple comparison sites. It shouldn't take too long, most applications can be completed within 5-10 minutes at the most.

Our opening times are: Monday to Thursday, 9.00am to 6.00pm; Friday, 9.00am to 5.30pm; Saturday 9.00am to 12.00pm. Sundays we have a lie-in.