Car Insurance Groups
A guide to cost and theft resistance
If you're budgeting for a new car, you'll need to consider the cost of insurance before you can get the full picture.
Most new cars fall into an insurance group – a rating between 1 and 20 which indicates the level of risk as perceived by the insurance industry. The lower the number the lower the insurance premium should be. Specials, such as kit cars, imports and conversions are generally not covered by the insurance group rating scheme.
Insurance group ratings are for guidance only though and insurers don't have to follow them. Most insurers will take them into account though alongside their own records of any previous claims and risks when they set your insurance premiums.
All else being equal, the insurance group assigned to a particular car model can give you a good idea of the relative cost of insurance.
What Difference Does it make?
The truth is it depends on the insurer, your personal details and the car you ask them to quote for. As a rule of thumb, add on roughly £30 to the cost of comprehensive cover every time the insurance group number increases by 1, up to around 15. For higher groups each step could cost nearer £200.
Who Decides?
The Insurance Group Rating Panel (members of Association of British Insurers' (ABI) and Lloyds Market Association (LMA)) allocates groups to new cars based on research by the Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre (Thatcham).
The insurance group for a particular model takes account of:
- the car's price when new
- performance – image, top speed and time taken to go from 0 to 60mph
- repair costs – labour and parts following a standard low-speed (15km/h) impact test
- body shell – availability and price
- parts prices – associated with more severe collisions
Theft Deterrents
To encourage car manufacturers to fit more effective security systems to their cars, the group–rating process also takes into account locks and security devices fitted to the car as standard. Insurers' standards are more testing than the basic legal requirements and increase with the group rating.
Where security has been rated, the insurance group number, from 1 to 20, is followed by a letter, which shows the results of the assessment.
- E = Exceeds the security requirement for a car of this type and the group rating has been reduced – so a group 10 car that exceeds the standard is listed as a 9E.
- A = Acceptable security requirements for the car's group.
- P = Provisional – incomplete data when the model was launched.
- D = Doesn't meet the security requirement for a car of this type and the group rating has been increased as a result – so a group 8 car that doesn't meet the standard is listed as a 9D.
- U = Unacceptable – the level of security is significantly below requirements. The car won't be uninsurable, but some insurers may insist on a security upgrade before they cover you.
The Future
One day, group ratings may be based on your protection as a driver or passenger if you're hit from the front or side, plus whiplash protection if someone goes into the back of your car.
Euro NCAP, the programme that crash tests new cars and awards star ratings for occupant protection, has shown that different models offer different levels of protection. Put bluntly, the best will allow you to walk away from a severe impact, the worst won't.
Whiplash to both the driver and to passengers accounts for around 80% of all personal–injury claims following car accidents. Some seat and head–restraint designs offer better protection against whiplash than others.
Insurers in here and abroad have developed a rating system that predicts the whiplash potential of different designs. These ratings could become part of the insurance group rating, possibly as an extra letter alongside the security-rating letter.