When you're shopping for car insurance, the choices you make for coverages can affect the premium you pay. One of those choices is deciding whether you should get comprehensive coverage or just collision. This is one of the areas of car insurance where you could save money.

Collision coverage pays to repair damage on your car caused by an accident that you are at-fault with. There is usually a deductible, or amount you have to pay, before the insurance company pays for the damage. If you choose a higher deductible, you should get a lower premium.

Comprehensive coverage pays for damage to your car caused by events other than a collision. This would be events like vandalism, flood, fire, hail or other "acts of God." Comprehensive protection also carries a deductible before the coverage starts. Adding comprehensive coverage to your policy will increase your premium. So is it worth it?

Unless you have a lender with a lien on your vehicle that requires comprehensive coverage, it's really a personal decision. If you have a newer car and you don't think you could come up with the cash yourself to fix non-collision caused damage you may want to consider comprehensive coverage. That way you can keep your car's value and appearance up. If you have an older car that's depreciated quite a bit, comprehensive coverage is probably not worth the extra costs on your car insurance.

If you want to save money on your car insurance, and feel like you're pretty disciplined, you may want to forego comprehensive coverage and put the extra you would pay on premiums and deductibles into a savings account.

Whether you get comprehensive or just collision, make sure that you shop around for the best rates. Get at least three comparison quotes using the same deductibles and limits. Also, if you have comprehensive coverage that you got when a car was newer a few years ago, evaluate whether it's still necessary before getting comparison quotes.