Insurance groups

Appsherd

For the last few years I have been using a 2005 Peugeot 206 1.4l (inherited from my Dad), which was Insurance Group 11. I renewed the insurance this year just before I bought a 2011 Skoda Octavia (1.6 MPI petrol engine), which is also Group 11.

I phoned to change my insurance from the Peugeot to the Skoda. I was expecting to have to pay perhaps slightly more than the Broker's Administration Fee, but even allowing for the admin fee I have actually had to pay considerably more than 100% of the amount I had already paid for the Peugeot insurance which had been in force for only 9 days.

Are Insurance Groups any guide at all in judging what your real world insurance premium is likely to be?

forgotmyname

The actual group number is not an indicator on the premium your going to pay. Far too many variables.

As an example on the old 20 group rating system I could insure a group 18 car for considerably less
than a group 13 car.

My premium for a large family estate with a fairly large engine is £327, I considered a hybrid with smaller
less powerful engine and a small 30 mile battery and my insurer wanted almost £1000 even though the
hybrid was a 15E instead of my current car which is a 32E

flaneurs_lobster

Insurance groups are a way of comparing the likely insurance costs between different cars all other things being equal.

Here you are comparing the cost between different cars of different ages, value, and historical depreciation rates.
 
Still, twice the price does seem rather excessive, was the Pug's insurance particularly low? Did you run the new car's particulars through the usual comparison sites?

Desmond_Hume

I’ve been driving for over 20 years and not once have I looked at the insurance group of a car. Comparing actual quotes - yes. Groups - no. 

I couldn’t even tell you the groups for any of the cars I’ve owned. As far as I’m concerned as a consumer, they’re totally meaningless. 

flaneurs_lobster

Desmond_Hume said:

I’ve been driving for over 20 years and not once have I looked at the insurance group of a car. Comparing actual quotes - yes. Groups - no. 

I couldn’t even tell you the groups for any of the cars I’ve owned. As far as I’m concerned as a consumer, they’re totally meaningless. 

The same, only over 40 years. I know that the 'system' changed some years ago from having 1-20 to something else, all utterly irrelevant. 

Car_54

Appsherd said:

Are Insurance Groups any guide at all in judging what your real world insurance premium is likely to be?

No.              

Appsherd

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. I am afraid I am obviously too naive (aka stupid!). While choosing a car (online), the first thing I looked at was always the insurance group. I never attempted to get an insurance quote. I deliberately chose an Octavia with the MPI engine, due to the Group !! insurance, rather than the much more common FSI engine (Group 14). If I had checked quotes for each, I might have found not too much difference, and had many more cars to choose from!

DullGreyGuy

flaneurs_lobster said:

Insurance groups are a way of comparing the likely insurance costs between different cars all other things being equal.

No there not, and certainly not for large insurers that have millions of records of their own to go by. 

The "Insurance Groups" are calculated by Thatcham Research, it is predominately a rating based on the cost of repairing the vehicle with some secondary considerations to safety, security and performance. As such it's interesting enough but it misses a very important component of "whats the typical driver like?"

Ok, I admit to @flaneurs_lobster that I was adjusting two points but some time ago was looking at either a Mini Cooper S (group 27) or a Mercedes SL500 (group 50). Both cars brand new so the only difference was the car and about £60k on the price tag but as we know more expensive cars are more expensive to insurer. 

The quotes with all other factors being equal was that the SL was £250 a year cheaper to insure than the Mini. Add a learner driver (wife) and that then became something like £500 cheaper to insure. 

How people drive cars is massively important and whilst first party losses in an SL are going to be much more than a Mini the reality is Minis are involved in many more accidents proportionally than SLs and what your car is makes not much difference if you hit a pedestrian at 40mph. So higher own damage is more than offset by the more frequent claims with equal third party payouts. 

We had our own groupings for cars on a scale of 0 to 99 which had little correlation to the Thatcham scale

flaneurs_lobster

DullGreyGuy said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Insurance groups are a way of comparing the likely insurance costs between different cars all other things being equal.

No there not, and certainly not for large insurers that have millions of records of their own to go by. 

Oh I completely agree, I was only referring to the use of these groups as another indicator as to likely cost of ownership when used by an ordinary punter to compare cars, like MPG figures or the Reliability Indices that various bodies produce.