Car Insurance Group

To make a better judgment of the level of driver and vehicle protection, and the type of policy that would be most suitable for you it is important to gain an understanding of the Car Insurance Group categories.

UK motor insurance companies, brokers, providers and intermediaries take advantage of the ratings system to provide the correct level of car insurance. Group ratings are purely advisory and each group is assigned a number form 1 to 20. This enables each each vehicle model to be accurately banded with cars of similar characteristics. An example of how the system works can be seen from the example below:

• Basic VW Polo model insurance group 3
• Citroen Saxo 1.6i VTR is group 7
• BMW 3 series (base model) car insurance group 11
• Aston Martin’s are group 20 insurance

Note how the insurance group number rises according to relevant engine size, and performance of the car. We can deduce then that the higher the group, the more relatively expensive it is likely to be to insure the vehicle. (1 is low, 20 is high). Their are obviously other factors which are inputted to accurately reflect the correct insurance group for a particular make and model of car i.e. vehicle security level, age, is the car an import etc?

The Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre at Thatcham provide the Association of British Insurers with 70% of the information used to establish the Insurance Group of every private motor car registered in the UK.

The car insurance bands of private cars and light commercial vehicles can be seen on the Association of British Insurers web site.

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