Car Types And Insurance Rates

By Author: Marcus Stalder
Total Articles: 491
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Most of us aren't very happy when the time comes to renew the insurance policy for the vehicle. A lot of drivers feel like they are overpaying for insurance and think that the insurance companies are to blame. However, when asked about the reason for the policies being so expensive very few of them state that their cars have an influence on the rates they are charged with. And that's a very common and serious mistake. The car you drive is the main factor that influences your insurance rates. Even the type of car you choose to purchase has a significant impact on your premium. So how insurance rates change depending on the car type?

Insurance companies use a set of factors that determine the risk of insuring a particular vehicle. The most important risk-determining factors are repair costs, theft rates, damage to other vehicles, injuries to passengers and likelihood of accident. By using these parameters it's really easy to classify mot common vehicle types with respect to car insurance costs:

Small vehicles

Smaller cars are usually cheaper, get stolen very rarely and aren't expensive to repair. However, ...
... when it comes to safety and injuries to the passengers smaller cars get very risky. Simple law of physics make it evident that if a small and large vehicle collide the damage to the small vehicle will be greater due to difference in mass. So despite the lower price you are likely to get higher insurance rates with this type of vehicles.

Medium vehicles

Medium sized sedans and hatch backs are probably the optimal choice for those trying to get cheaper insurance. Of course the rates may vary greatly from model to model but in general these cars are cheap to repair, known for their overall safety, do not inflict too much damage to other vehicles and aren't likely to be stolen. A typical mid class car will earn you the most competitive car insurance rates.

Large vehicles

Large SUVs and similar vehicles are certainly very comfortable, safe and won't cause serious injuries to passengers. However, certain models of large cars are very likely to be stolen, require more expensive parts and usually cause serious damage to other cars and the infrastructure. Moreover, they also have larger engines which is another factor seriously increasing insurance costs.

Sports and muscle cars

This type of cars is definitely the most expensive from the car insurance perspective. Sports and muscle cars tend to get involved in serious accidents very often, usually have expensive repair parts, inflict serious damage to other cars and infrastructure, cause serious injuries to persons involved and tend to get stolen quite often. So if you're driving a fast performance vehicle get ready to pay up for keeping it insured.

Luxury vehicles

Luxury cars are another type of vehicles that aren't cheap to insure but that should be evident assuming the typical price tag for such cars. When you have a car that costs more than $100k with repair parts that sometimes cost like a small car and often become the target of auto thieves it's really hard to imagine cheap insurance for such a drive.