Car Insurance Groups and factors that determine Cheap Car Insurance

When buying a new or used car, it is essential that you consider the cost of running it when budgeting. Potentially, one of the biggest annual outlays you will make when you own a car will be on the car insurance, with costs ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand pounds a year. Car insurance groups give you an indicator of what are the cheapest - and of course most expensive - cars to insure. Since 2007 car insurance groups have ranged from 1-50 (previously 1-20) and the lower the group the lower the insurance cost, the higher the group the higher the insurance cost.

Insurance Group Searches

What factors determine the insurance group for each model?

Over half of all money paid out in motor insurance claims goes on repairing cars. The cost of spare parts and the time taken by repairers are therefore major factors in pricing motor insurance. The factors used to calculate group ratings are:

Insurnace Group Ratings Factors

Insurance group letter suffix (A D E P U G) security indicator

A single letter suffix is appended to many insurance group listings, which signifies the level of security fitted as standard to that vehicle. The level is group dependent and the requirements increase along with the group (an Insurance Group 5 car will have lower security requirements than a Group 45 car, for example). Here's what the letters mean:

Meets security requirement for this group.

Does not meet the security requirement for a car of this type and the group rating has therefore been increased. (e.g. A group 9 car where the security requirement is not up to Thatcham's minimum standard for that group will be listed as a 10D.)

Exceeds security requirement for a car of this type and the group rating has therefore been reduced. (e.g. A group 9 car where the security requirement exceeds Thatcham's minimum standard for that group will be listed as an 8E.)

(It will be seen from the above that the level of security on a vehicle could result in a two group differential between otherwise identical models.)

Provisional - This is used in cases where the data for group rating was incomplete at time of launch.

Cases where the level of security for the model concerned is regarded as Unacceptable. This does not mean that the car will be uninsurable but consumers should be aware that individual insurers may insist on the security being upgraded before providing cover.

Import.