Car Insurance – Size Isn’t Everything…

As with everything in life size matters, this is perhaps why some people may feel they need to compensate for their perceived shortcomings by buying the biggest most expensive looking car they can find. Of course if you are successful you may want this to reflect in your choice of car and for that I can’t blame you. If your car could sum up the sort of person you are, mine would say about me; small, practical and reliable. Leaving that worrying thought behind us and whilst I make a call to the garage to order a new much more impressive one, let us move on.

Generally most insurers follow the insurance group rating system of 1-20, 1 being the cheapest and least risky car and 20 the complete opposite. Some insurers have now also increased the top end of this scale to as much as 40 or 50, as you can imagine cars at this end of the scale would be very expensive to insure to say the least.

Up until recently the majority of cars have received their insurance group rating based on the size of their engine and the performance statistics and safety features of the vehicle. This has now been visited by a period of change in which we see grouping swinging more towards the general size and weight of the car and the damage it is likely to do to a third party. Those with large car’s such as Landrovers or similar will find their car insurance premiums rising with as much as an extra £1-200 tagged on to already expensive policies. Of course you may argue that these cars are safer to those in them but this is unfortunately not the point. When a car of this size collides with a much smaller vehicle little damage may be suffered but to the other party considerable damage and injury may be caused resulting in this type of vehicle carrying a much higher risk factor.

It has been estimated that insurance premiums will have risen by 18% by the end of this year. Add to this the increase tagged onto large vehicles such as 4x4’s and you may have an expensive motor insurance policy on your hands when it comes time for renewal.

The massive increase in the purchase of larger vehicles has burgeoned the phrase “Chelsea tractor” to give a name to this rapidly expanding group of large and more dangerous cars on our roads.

Unfortunately there’s more bad news for those of you who may have thought you were doing your bit to help the environment. Mid range Turbo diesel cars whilst regarded as generally more economical have much more pulling power (torque) than their petrol counterparts. The extra power this can deliver to an unsuspecting driver increases the risk of the vehicle being involved in an accident and therefore becomes more expensive to insure. At least this is the way the insurance companies see it regardless of the fact that the majority of diesel car owners are well aware of the performance of their vehicle.

Combine the above with the increases in motor tax set to also target the same group of drivers and it seems it is becoming more and more expensive to own a car of this size or capable of any level of performance. This is obviously the intention of the Government who seek to reduce the number of these vehicles and indeed all vehicles on the road.