Insurance groups - effect on premium.

WIAWSNB

Obvs it has a significant effect, but does anyone have rough ballpark figures so I don't have to keep getting quotes? Are there any good sites for this?

In essence, I'm trying to figure out the £ifference between the 'lowest' premium of G6-8 (say Aygo) up to, say, G17 (yikes!) for the Ignis.

This would be for a 23 year old and their first car.

Thanks. 

Isthisforreal99

It doesn't have as much effect as you think it does - it's pefectly feasible to get a quote that is less for a higher insurance group car than a lower.

Obviously a performance car is a differeent matter and the only real way to find out is getting quotes.

Have you tried quotes on Aygo v Ignis to see what the difference is?

jimjames

If they're looking for cheapest insurance then worth checking with cars that are more unusual or less popular with new drivers. Audi 3.2 V6 car was cheaper than Corsa 1.2 for example despite the insurance groups

Mildly_Miffed

Groups are just a small part of setting a premium. For ostensibly similar cars, they're basically how much the car costs to repair, after a number of "standardised" collisions performed by an industry body.
https://www.thatcham.org/pf/group-rating/

Insurers also take into account how likely that particular type of car is to be involved in collisions in the first place, with driver demographics also taken into account.

So let's say that Supermini A is often crashed by teens and twenties, but very rarely by middle-aged people. Supermini B, though, is seen as "uncool" by the types of young drivers who often hit things, so is more rarely crashed. So for a young driver, A might be a chunk more expensive to insure than B, despite them being apparently similar - while for an older driver, they may be similar.

And, of course, for a lower-value car, the repair cost becomes irrelevant - because insurers will never repair, just write off. OTOH, the salvage value for A and B may differ, so the net cost of writing off a nominally £2k car may vary if B is worth £250 weigh-in (net £1750) while A is worth £1k (net £1k) at salvage auction to breakers - perhaps because the people who bend them frequently will often repair them themselves with used bits rather than claim...

Short version - ask a meerkat about each, because it's not easy to guess.

WIAWSNB

Thanks all.

I guess I'll need to get some actual quotes so I can compare them realistically - what a palaver. 

Just astonished at how high the Ignis appears to be - and then I checked the Swift and that's G22-25!

On a connected note, I'm thinking of buying the car under my name, insuring it as our second car, adding daughter for purposes of teaching her to drive, and then - once she passes - handing it all over to her, insurance responsibility and all. 

I am aware of issue of incorrectly declaring who the 'main' driver is - ie you cannot 'add' a sprog to 'your' insurance whilst letting them be the main driver - but am I correct in thinking that my scenario above would be ok? Ie, daughter would (could) not use the car on her own until she passed, and then the insurance responsibility (and car) would be passed fully on to her?

Isthisforreal99

WIAWSNB said:

Thanks all.

I guess I'll need to get some actual quotes so I can compare them realistically - what a palaver. 

Just astonished at how high the Ignis appears to be - and then I checked the Swift and that's G22-25!

On a connected note, I'm thinking of buying the car under my name, insuring it as our second car, adding daughter for purposes of teaching her to drive, and then - once she passes - handing it all over to her, insurance responsibility and all. 

I am aware of issue of incorrectly declaring who the 'main' driver is - ie you cannot 'add' a sprog to 'your' insurance whilst letting them be the main driver - but am I correct in thinking that my scenario above would be ok? Ie, daughter would (could) not use the car on her own until she passed, and then the insurance responsibility (and car) would be passed fully on to her?

Who would you propose putting down as the main driver in this scenario? If the only time it will be driven is for teaching her to drive then she will be the main driver.

We have put daughters insurance in her name (as is the car) with us as named drivers. She is still learning and quote was around £1200 for a Clio.

Bigphil1474

You can buy the car, and register it under any name. It's just the registered keeper, not the owner, on the V5C. If you insure it for you or some other licence holder to use as their main car and add your daughter for lessons, that's fine. If it's just for lessons and nobody else really uses it, that might be moving towards dodginess. Once she passes her test, you could re-register it in your daughters name if you want to (no need to) and she could just then amend the existing insurance policy or take out her own policy if the other one is ending. Perfectly legit.

MyRealNameToo

As has been well explained above, "insurance groups" are predominately the measure of the cost to repair a car following a crash with some secondary considerations to security and safety (eg how pedestrians hit by the car fair)

Insurance groups make little difference to insurance premiums. At one point we were going to buy a brand new car of either a £20kish Mini Cooper S (group circa 22 at the time) or a £100kish Mercedes SL500 (group 50). Despite the SL being vastly more expensive and at the highest insurance group it was actually the cheaper of the two vehicles to insure for us. 

Insurers do their own analysis on their experience of claims, 50% of claims costs are from third parties and generally it doesnt make much difference if you hit a cyclist with a VW Up or a Rolls Royce Phantom, their claim is going to be the same. Insurers however do find that even if you take age out of the equation that certain vehicles have a worse claims exposure. Hot hatches tend to have a higher frequency/cost than luxury GTs irrespective so would suggest the mentality of those that gravitate to those cars can be similar be they 19 or 49

The general rule of thumb has always been to broadly ignore the groups and instead pick cars that a teenager wouldnt want to be seen dead in. When I was a youth my 1.1 Saxo L was three times the price to insure than my friends 2.0 Rover 800 despite every aspect of the rover probably being better

WIAWSNB

Isthisforreal99 said:

WIAWSNB said:

Thanks all.

I guess I'll need to get some actual quotes so I can compare them realistically - what a palaver. 

Just astonished at how high the Ignis appears to be - and then I checked the Swift and that's G22-25!

On a connected note, I'm thinking of buying the car under my name, insuring it as our second car, adding daughter for purposes of teaching her to drive, and then - once she passes - handing it all over to her, insurance responsibility and all. 

I am aware of issue of incorrectly declaring who the 'main' driver is - ie you cannot 'add' a sprog to 'your' insurance whilst letting them be the main driver - but am I correct in thinking that my scenario above would be ok? Ie, daughter would (could) not use the car on her own until she passed, and then the insurance responsibility (and car) would be passed fully on to her?

Who would you propose putting down as the main driver in this scenario? If the only time it will be driven is for teaching her to drive then she will be the main driver.
We have put daughters insurance in her name (as is the car) with us as named drivers. She is still learning and quote was around £1200 for a Clio.

Thanks. I do understand the implication. This would be my car, bought by me, registered to me, and used by me; I don't have a car during the day when wifie is at work with our sole family car. 

I would be the 'main' driver. Yes, I'd add daughter and give her driving experience alongside her lessons - in practice she may well do more miles in it than me. But I will be teaching her to drive in my car.

Once she passes, it'll then be hers in every respect - change of reg docs, and insurance all hers to arrange. (I may have to insist she adds me as a driver...  ) 

This is not me buying a car under my name and insurance, and adding daughter for her to then use the car mainly or solely as hers. Fine line, but still a line as far as I can see.

Altior

MyRealNameToo said:

As has been well explained above, "insurance groups" are predominately the measure of the cost to repair a car following a crash with some secondary considerations to security and safety (eg how pedestrians hit by the car fair)

Insurance groups make little difference to insurance premiums. At one point we were going to buy a brand new car of either a £20kish Mini Cooper S (group circa 22 at the time) or a £100kish Mercedes SL500 (group 50). Despite the SL being vastly more expensive and at the highest insurance group it was actually the cheaper of the two vehicles to insure for us. 

Insurers do their own analysis on their experience of claims, 50% of claims costs are from third parties and generally it doesnt make much difference if you hit a cyclist with a VW Up or a Rolls Royce Phantom, their claim is going to be the same. Insurers however do find that even if you take age out of the equation that certain vehicles have a worse claims exposure. Hot hatches tend to have a higher frequency/cost than luxury GTs irrespective so would suggest the mentality of those that gravitate to those cars can be similar be they 19 or 49

The general rule of thumb has always been to broadly ignore the groups and instead pick cars that a teenager wouldnt want to be seen dead in. When I was a youth my 1.1 Saxo L was three times the price to insure than my friends 2.0 Rover 800 despite every aspect of the rover probably being better

I 'gravitate' to hot hatches as I much prefer small cars, and I like to have power available. 

Granted I have 15+ years of NCD, my last fully comp premium was £150. Wasn't a high value car , circa £4K before I sold it.

In the recent past I drove a brand new £45K list price TT. The premium wasn't a huge deal more. Broadly the same power as my most recent car.

I suspect it's very true that certain models have high premiums for young drivers as they have a history of being crashed by them a lot (as a group). But also risk of theft, post code, so many variables. I know my old (bought brand new) Fiesta ST3 had a high premium as it had a very bad security exposure (thieves could easily break the tiny piece of glass on the driver's door, access the OBD port, and recode a 'key'). 

jimjames

WIAWSNB said:

Isthisforreal99 said:

WIAWSNB said:

Thanks all.

I guess I'll need to get some actual quotes so I can compare them realistically - what a palaver. 

Just astonished at how high the Ignis appears to be - and then I checked the Swift and that's G22-25!

On a connected note, I'm thinking of buying the car under my name, insuring it as our second car, adding daughter for purposes of teaching her to drive, and then - once she passes - handing it all over to her, insurance responsibility and all. 

I am aware of issue of incorrectly declaring who the 'main' driver is - ie you cannot 'add' a sprog to 'your' insurance whilst letting them be the main driver - but am I correct in thinking that my scenario above would be ok? Ie, daughter would (could) not use the car on her own until she passed, and then the insurance responsibility (and car) would be passed fully on to her?

Who would you propose putting down as the main driver in this scenario? If the only time it will be driven is for teaching her to drive then she will be the main driver.
We have put daughters insurance in her name (as is the car) with us as named drivers. She is still learning and quote was around £1200 for a Clio.

This is not me buying a car under my name and insurance, and adding daughter for her to then use the car mainly or solely as hers. Fine line, but still a line as far as I can see.

It is equally legal for you to buy the car under your name and insurance and when your daughter passes to declare that she is the main driver on your car. She won't earn her own NCD and would affect your claim history on the policy if she had an accident but that isn't fronting as you've declared the correct main driver.