Car Insurance Groups

Most people look at car insurance groups only as a guide to the cost of insurance. However, ask yourself why cars have low or high groups and you’ll quickly see that they’re an indication of so much more – the higher the insurance group the more likely it is that your car is going to be stolen or involved in an expensive accident, or at least that’s the way your insurer is thinking. And they’re not going by chance or intuition – they have high powered computers crunching huge volumes of data to determine exactly what the risk posed by any given vehicle. 

Of course if you want a particular type of car, you’re going to pay the appropriate level of insurance – but careful analysis of insurance groups can help you get the best value for your money. Take for example the Porsche Boxster S which in standard form attracts a whopping group 19 tag thanks to its 260 brake horsepower, 3.2 litre engine. Despite immaculate road-holding, ABS brakes and one of the finest chassis ever put in a road going car, the insurers have decided that it’s a big risk. But you can do things to reduce the risk – you may have rejected the tiptronic gearbox option on the basis that it adds a hefty extra price to the already costly Boxster. But for many insurers the tiptronic Boxster is a group lower, and the difference between 18 and 19 can be considerable – many insurers won’t touch anything over 18, so there are a lot more companies to choose from when you go for the extra cost of tiptronic. 

One reason for the lower group on the tiptronic Boxster S is that its performance is a little less sparkling on paper, but despite this most drivers will get better performance from it – the tiptronic option may have a slightly higher 0-60 time in the hands of a racing driver, but under normal conditions, with an average driver, the tiptronic will outshine its manual sibling. And as the driver has to concentrate less on being in the right gear, he or she can concentrate more on the other.

So consider the higher resale value of the tiptronic and the savings you’ll make on insurance, but deduct the penalty you’ll pay for its slightly heavier fuel consumption. On balance the tiptronic might actually be a more enjoyable, and more economical consumption in the long term.

But most of all, consider the fact that the highly experienced staff of our biggest insurers, backed up by a wealth of data and powerful computers to process it, have decided that a Boxster S with a 6 speed manual gearbox is group 19 compared with a tiptronic Boxster S which they rate at group 18. And that one point is sufficient for many of them to refuse to insure it.

Other Insurance Group factors

Our enquires also revealed that although many companies will award cars a lower rating if they have ABS, not many have yet recognised the benefits of other active safety systems such as stability management. We investigated Porsche’s stability management system and found that it’s a superb safety aid, with a high performance computer system taking steps to keep you out of trouble when it detects, through its sophisticated sensors, that you are about to lose control of your vehicle. However, we were amazed that not one of the insurers we spoke to were prepared to offer a discount for vehicles fitted with this excellent system.

Reduce your insurance policy

Alarms and Immobilisers

Alarm systems can make a difference to what you have to pay. On a 2003 Boxster S, a factory fit immobiliser and alarm system is expected, and fortunately Porsche provide an excellent one as standard – but be wary of import models that don’t have this feature. 

Trackers

You may also get a small reduction from many insurers if you fit a tracker device. In fact, in our trials the best insurance deal we could get didn’t give a discount for a tracker but it was still considerably cheaper than the next best deal; We still recommend a tracker though – even if your pride and joy is well insured, you don’t want to lose it, and for a car like this the extra cost of a tracker (about £500 fitted) is a small price to pay. 
Typically Tracker systems come in three versions – standard, alert and GPS. The basic models will start working once you discover that your vehicle is missing. 
 
The Tracker alert models will detect a movement of the car without its keys being used; this can be a major benefit if you leave your car out of site for any period of time. But beware, if you don’t take good care of your keys, including spare ones, you could lose the car all too easily despite your expensive tracking system. And you won’t even bother to check whether your car’s still there because you’ll be convinced that you’d have been alerted had anything happened. Alert models cost only slightly more than the standard systems and, if you take appropriate precautions, offer considerably more protection. 

The most sophisticated systems offer all the benefits of the Alert models, and use GPS technology for even more accurate location of the vehicle. These cost a few hundred pounds more than the Alert systems, a premium that might be slightly more than you want to pay. 

Watch the Insurance small print

Our best value insurance deal refused to cover the cost of extras on the vehicle – even manufacturers extras that were fitted to the car in the factory; with the typical Porsche owner spending between three and six thousand pounds on extras this can be a big issue if your car is written off or stolen. However, that insurer offered us a deal that was 40% lower than the next nearest competitor, and with a difference like that you have to consider the option of taking a little extra risk in return for a considerable saving on the premiums. 

You may feel that such a saving is worth taking if you protect yourself, to an extent, against the extra risk by fitting a tracker to minimise the chance of a total loss of the vehicle.  

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