A study conducted by Vantage Leasing [1] has revealed where you might be going wrong with your car insurance.
Having conducted research into the cheapest cars to insure, the data also showed the types of occupations that offer the cheapest premium.
The insurance group a car is allocated largely determines the cost of annual cover, with the vehicles in the lowest groups typically the cheapest insure.
Ranging from groups 1 to 50, every car on the market is assessed by the Group Rating Panel (members of the Association of British Insurers and the Lloyds Market Association). However, insurers can also use their own system to assess risk, too.
What influences insurance groups?
When the panel decides which insurance groups to assign cars to, it considers the following:
Performance: High-performance vehicles are almost always more expensive to insure - they are more likely to make a claim. However, specialist insurers can bring down the cost significantly.
Cost of repair: Some vehicles are extremely reliable and cheap to repair; conversely other go wrong often and cost a lot to fix. Therefore, this is a key factor in determining which group a vehicle is assigned to.
The value of the car: The retail price of a new car is closely linked to the insurance group it is given. It indicates how much it might cost to replace or repair.
Car security: Unfortunately, car theft is on the rise, but built-in security features can reduce the cost of insurance and help achieve a lower insurance rating. Approved immobilisers, security locks and alarms all help reduce insurance costs. The security rating of a car is indicated by letters E, A, P, D and U - with U being the least secure.
Safety: The level of safety technology also has an impact on insurance groups. Autonomous braking systems, for example, can reduce the chances of having an accident and therefore the cost of a policy.
Cheapest cars to insure
We recently conducted some research to find the UK's cheapest car to insure (April 2019), with the ŠKODA Fabia coming out on top. These are all insurance group 1 vehicles.
Cheapest occupation
We also researched how other variables, including occupation, impact the cost of insurance. We selected the 10 most common jobs according to the Office for National Statistics and ranked them from one to 10 (April 2019).
If you would like any advice of the best cars to lease [2] to keep insurance premiums lower, Vantage Leasing specialises in personal finance management and can guide you through the process of keeping motoring costs down.