Car insurance groups Which category does your car fall into?

If you're budgeting for a new car, you'll need to consider the cost of insurance before you can get the full picture. Follow our guide to car insurance ratings to find out what they mean and how they are calculated.

Like it or not, if you want to drive a car, you've got to be insured. It's illegal to drive without cover. Whether you have a third-party or fully-comprehensive policy, a range of things, including where you'll keep it, previous claims and your age can bump up your premiums. The type of car you drive is also key.

 

What Do the Ratings Mean?

Most new cars fall into an insurance group. Ratings range from 1 to 20, where 1 means you pay lower insurance premiums because they are low-risk cars for insurers. These ratings don't cover specials, such as kit cars, imports and conversions. 

Insurance group ratings are purely for guidance though and insurers don't have to follow them. However, most insurers will take them into account 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. So, if there's more than one car on your shortlist and you're on a tight budget, the insurance group may be an area to look at.

 

 Whiplash to both the driver and to passengers accounts for around 80% of all personal-injury claims following car accidents. 

 

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 Association of British Insurers (ABI) 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. For example a car in group 15 is expected to have more robust security features than a car in group 5. 

From Exceptional to Unacceptable

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. 

Personal-injury Claims

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. 

The Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre (Thatcham), along with foreign partners, has 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. 

Source: The A.A