Are you one of those people who lets their car insurance auto-renew? Perhaps you leave it till the last minute, scratching around for your insurance details on the renewal date? Well did you know that there is an optimum date for sorting out your car insurance, and that leaving it late is never the best option.

Analysis from Comparethemarket has found that those who renew their policy 20 days before the premium runs out will pay on average £306 less than those who wait until a day before.

If you wait till the renewal date itself you will pay on average £707, while the day before it will cost £617, two weeks the cost is £431, while the optimum saving is three weeks which is just £401.

According to the research December is the most expensive month to update your policy, purely because that is the month most people tend to sort out their finances and plan for the next year. So while it might be tempting to leave it till January, there is another warning, as new car insurance rules from New Year’s Day could make all policies more expensive.

The Financial Conduct Authority is to ban so-called ‘loyalty penalties’ whereby those who remain with the same company pay a lot more for a premium than new customers. That could have a knock-on effect and mean we all pay a little bit more for our motor insurance.

"Many people leave it until the last minute, but you can save a considerable amount of money by switching roughly three weeks before your policy is due to auto-renew,” said Ursula Gibbs from Comparethemarket.

"While motor insurance has typically been cheap at the start of the year, 2022 could be different.

"If your policy is due to auto-renew in the next few weeks, you may be better off switching sooner rather than later."

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