Insurance Group Prices Table

The biggest single factor. Cars with cheap, mass-produced parts (Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Corsa, Hyundai i10) sit in lower groups. Cars with specialist or imported parts sit higher.

Faster cars are statistically more likely to be involved in serious claims. A 1.0L supermini sits far below a 3.0L performance saloon with the same body shape.

The Group Rating Panel measures how long a model takes to repair after a standard rear-end shunt. Longer repair times mean more loan-car days and higher claim costs.

Alarms, immobilisers, autonomous emergency braking, and lane-keep assist all reduce a car’s group. Aftermarket security can sometimes shift a car down a group, but only if the kit meets Thatcham category standards.

If the car is written off, the insurer pays the market value. Cheaper cars cost less to replace, which feeds through into lower premiums.

VRR scores cars across five risk areas: performance, damageability, repairability, safety, and security. Each area gets a score from 1 (lowest risk) to 99 (highest risk), and the scores combine into an overall risk profile.

The original 1-50 system was designed for traditional internal combustion cars. Modern vehicles — particularly EVs and cars with advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) — have repair and risk profiles that the older system struggles to measure accurately.

For cars registered before August 2024, your group on the 1-50 scale still drives most of the underwriting decision. For cars registered after, expect insurers to start quoting against VRR scores. The same car under different rating systems may attract different premiums.

Thatcham has not announced a fixed retirement date for the 1-50 group system. The two systems run in parallel for now, and insurers can use either or both when setting premiums.

The same car in the same group can quote significantly different premiums across insurers. Comparing 130+ UK providers in one place via Quotezone is the single biggest leverage point on most quotes.

Higher voluntary excess often reduces the premium, but only raise it to a level you can comfortably afford to pay if you need to claim. Don’t raise excess to a level that would stop you actually claiming — that defeats the point of cover.

Monthly direct debit usually adds an interest charge on most policies (effectively a credit agreement). Paying the annual premium upfront avoids that, often saving 5-15% over the year.

Years of claim-free driving can reduce a premium by 50% or more on most policies. NCD protection is often inexpensive on top — worth checking the cost vs the discount it protects.

Even cosmetic modifications (alloys, body kits) must be declared and will push the premium up. The whole point of a low-group car is to keep premiums down — modifications work against that.