We hear a lot about the postcode lottery, whether it is with reference to health care, good schools, or provision of social services. It seems, however, that where you live can also have a big impact on how much you pay for your car insurance and Dundee, voted best city for drivers in July this year, comes out tops.

According to the Talk Once car insurance website, one of the questions their insurance news desk is asked the most relates to the extent to which car insurance premiums are affected by where you live. As they point out, the whole basis of insurance is the calculation of risk, and if you live in a high risk area then you are going to be quoted a far higher premium than someone with exactly the same driving history and car, living in a low risk area.

The types of factors taken into account when determining the risk include:

• the number of thefts in the area,
• the amount of damage reported,
• the type of housing, and
• the number of “high risk” or “accident prone” drivers in your area.

There are, however, no hard and fast rules as to which company takes what into account, and according to Richard Mason of Moneysupermarket.com “…even if you live in an area where the incidence of car crime is low, you could suffer high premiums because of the number of reckless drivers in your town.”

Moneysupermarket.com looked at quotes over a period of 6 months for a driver aged 25 to 45 with the maximum no claims bonus, no driving convictions, paying a voluntary excess of between £100 and £250 and driving a 6-year-old Ford Focus, parked overnight on the drive. Perhaps unsurprisingly the east end of London, with its high crime rate is the most expensive area for car insurance, with the Ford Focus costing £315 a year to insure. Not far behind come more urban areas such as Bolton, Liverpool, South East London and Manchester.

If our East Ender were willing to relocate to Dundee, he would find himself paying almost £200 less in car insurance. Other Scottish cities in the Top Ten of cheapest premiums are Aberdeen and Inverness, whilst the Southwest of England also does well with Bristol, Exeter, Truro and Taunton also in the Top Ten.

Short of moving house, however, the best things to do to keep your premiums low are:

• If possible park your car off the road overnight. Even if you have to pay someone to let you use their drive or garage it may save you money in the long run.
• Fit a tracker, alarm or immobilizer – many insurance companies will reduce your premium if you do so.
• Only have people on your policy who really are going to drive your car. If this happens very infrequently it may be cheaper just to add them for a few days at a time.
• If you are a young driver see if your insurers will reduce your premium if you take the Pass Plus test.
• Shop around each year, as statistics for areas change and different insurers weigh the risk factors differently.

It’s bad enough when you can’t find your car key and the spare is nowhere to be seen, but according to Britannia Rescue, 3,000,000 of us don’t even have a spare. Those of us who do have one don’t always exercise common sense when it comes to keeping it safe though. Many of us keep it on the same key ring as the main key, whilst other bright sparks keep it in their glove compartment, making life tricky when they need to use it.

In the last decade or so, car security has become a sophisticated business with alarms and immobilisers being commonplace, which is great news for frustrating the car thieves but bad news when you want to have a new key made. It costs, on average, £200 to have one made and programmed, with those for even relatively low cost vehicles such as the Nissan Micra costing £326. If, in addition, you need work done on a sophisticated security system or the ignition, you are looking at very hefty bill indeed. With 1 in 6 drivers admitting to having lost their keys permanently, the British bill for replacements runs into millions.

You may well wonder whether you are covered for costs associated with lost keys, by either your motor insurance policy, or by your provider of breakdown assistance. As usual, it all depends on the small print, with many insurance companies excluding the loss of keys from their definition of a breakdown. Although some policies do include cover for lost keys, many drivers would rather foot the bill than lose their No Claims bonus and, of course, there is often a large excess anyway, making it hardly worth claiming.

As for breakdown assistance from the likes of the AA and the RAC, there is a great deal of variation in what each provides. The AA will call a local locksmith and if there is not one available, will have you towed to a garage. This, however, is all at your own cost. The RAC and Green Flag are slightly better in that they will cover the cost of having you towed, but not the garage or locksmith’s bills. Breakdown Direct on the other hand covers the cost of towing the car and passengers, either to your destination or back home, and their Nationwide Recovery policy includes cover for locksmith’s bills up to a maximum of £350.

If you’re a gadget junkie or have one on your Christmas list you might be interested in the Loc8tor. It is the size of a mobile phone and with some cunning software, radio waves, and aerials it can find all sorts of lost items within 600 feet. You just have to attach a transmitter (which is the size of a postage stamp) to all these easily lost items and the Loc8tor will lead you to them with the aid of a loud beep: the closer you get to the item, the louder it gets. This of course is not much use if your keys are locked in the glove compartment, but if it’s the classic case of them being buried under a pile of junk on the kitchen worktop, or having dropped down the back of the chair, then this could be the answer to your prayers.