Motorists are desperate for the next best insurance quote that can quell their worries about rising petrol prices and the cost of looking after their car. The question is are they willing to part with their ready made designer car for a green alternative?

New ranges of green cars are being released onto the market all the time, including fuel hybrids that claimed to be less polluting. Small city cars are also becoming more popular, some of which could run on electricity, which were defiantly less polluting. Green car insurance as followed and one such insurance provider is The Green Insurance Company, who claims that they will offset the environmentally unfriendliness of any car insured with them by planting trees. In addition they give 5 percent of their profits to charity and offer cheaper insurance deals for drivers of low emission vehicles.

The company recycles as much of a car’s metal as possible if it has been written off and encouraging the use of reconditioned car parts where possible. It is an indication of where green insurance might end up in the future, where green behaviours are rewarded with additional discounts and continual action to save the environment is carried out as a major part of the business. It seems that with the current popularity of the green trend amongst all sectors that this could be the case.

Another alternative linked to protecting the environment are auto insurance companies providing Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) coverage, which has recently been taking off in the United States. For example, the Oregon Environmental Council (OEC) has secured a law that provides companies ready to test a cents-per-mile premium with a limited tax credit, to offset the cost of a new mileage-tracking system. With a portion of a driver's annual dues converted into a per-mile fee, the driver would likely pay in advance for a given mileage, paying later for any excess miles or getting a rebate for driving less. This helps drivers control car costs and constitutes a strong financial incentive to reduce car use. Noting that per-mile premiums could make drivers cut driving by about 10 percent, which would reduce their insurance by as much as 25 percent and car crashes by 17 percent.

Sounds very promising but at home, some car insurance providers believe such scheme-particularly green insurance firms offering discounts to drivers of eco-friendly cars-are simply cynical marketing ploys. According to leading car insurance provider Direct Line, the offers were grabbing headlines but in reality had little substance or made little difference to the way consumers should shop for insurance.

The company stresses that the companies make other car insurance providers look bad in comparison simply by stating the obvious and by breaking no new ground at all. A representative stressed that 'green' cars were generally cheaper to insure anyway, given their lower specifications, and that drivers of ecologically-friendly vehicles could be expected to fall into the cheapest categories for insurance anyway. The argument is that they are cheap by their very nature and that consumers are well aware of this in any event.

If anything criticism only highlights the fact that shopping around for car insurance is the only real way to go, there are so many products online with excellent facilities on their websites, that you can find out in matter of seconds whether going green is for you or not.