How to check what insurance group my car is in

Car insurance groups are being replaced by the Vehicle Risk Rating System. Visit Tempcover's guide to Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) to find out more.

The car you drive has always had an impact on the price of your insurance policy. Bigger, faster and more expensive cars cost more to insure as they’re more likely to be targets for thieves and to be involved in accidents.

How these premiums are worked out isn’t quite so obvious…The system insurers use is called The Group Panel Rating, devised by Thatcham Research. There are 50 separate groups, each with their own specific associated risk calculation. Your car will fall into one of them.

Car insurance groups explained

The lower your car insurance group number, the lower your insurance, and vice versa. Simple, right? Essentially the whole system is designed to keep costs low for people who drive modest vehicles compared to people who drive very powerful, often modified cars.

It’s not the only factor impacting how much you pay. Your age, experience and location can all contribute, but the car insurance group plays a role.

So now you know how it works, how do you find out which insurance group your car is in?

How is your car insurance group worked out?

Many people think that engine size is the only factor determining which of the 50 insurance groups your car falls into. Engine size is important, but it’s just one of many factors used in the calculation. Others include:

• Value
• Performance
• Age
• Safety rating
• Security

Now, we’ll take a look at each factor and how it can affect the group your car is in.

Value - how much is your car worth?

If the worst were to happen and your insurer deemed the repairs to your vehicle too costly to warrant carrying out, your car would be written off and the insurer may have to cover the cost of replacing the whole vehicle.

With a low insurance group car, the cost of writing off your car is also lower for the insurer. Car values can range from a few hundred pounds to several thousand. If you drive a Bentley, you can expect your insurance group to be quite a bit higher than if you drive a Nissan Micra.

Performance - how fast can your car go?

High-performance vehicles (or in other words, cars designed to go very fast) will generally sit in a higher group. There’s a consensus among insurance firms that the higher the performance, the higher the likelihood of a claim.

This is partly because many people who buy high-performance cars like to drive them fast, and the risk of collision goes up. In the case of car insurance groups, slow means low.

Age - how long would your car take to repair?

Many cars are extremely popular, affordable and common, which makes them easy to repair. However, if your car is older or more unusual, then you may find the cost of repair goes up and, like the overall value of the vehicle, so does the grouping and cost of insurance.

Parts can be a pain to get hold of, especially if they need to be imported from overseas. One of the most common parts that need replacing is the bumper. If your car is manufactured with a generic form of bumper that is easy to source, it could help to bring your car insurance group down.

Safety rating - how safe is your car?

Unsurprisingly, the safer your car is the lower your group rating. In the event of a collision, the less reliable the car, the greater the damage and the higher the cost of the repairs.

Since modern cars are generally built to be safer than older ones, this tends to improve by default year on year, so if your car is quite new you may find you have one of the best Euro NCAP safety ratings possible.

Unlike your car insurance group, the higher your Euro NCAP, the better and safer your car is and the lower your group. The lower the rating, the higher your insurance group is likely to be.

Security - how likely are thieves to target your car?

The more secure your car is, the more likely it will be in a lower insurance group. Insurers tend to favour more secure cars as they are seen as lower risk and less likely to be stolen. You can’t change your car’s safety rating but you can improve its security by making a few simple changes including:

• Always double checking your car is locked
• Adding an alarm
• Adding an immobiliser
• Using a steering wheel lock
• Locking the car in your garage overnight (if you’re lucky enough to have one)
• Fitting a dash cam

These extra layers of security could also reduce insurance premiums whilst not reducing the insurance group. You will need to be declare them as additional security features for this to happen.

How do you check which insurance group your car is in?

If you don’t know what group your car is in, it’s easy to find out. While some insurers use their own grouping systems, most rely on the Thatcham Research criteria – the company that set up the grouping system. All you have to do is visit thatcham.org and enter your car’s details to instantly find out your group.

Can you lower the cost if your car is in a higher group?

Insurance companies do not have to use car insurance groups, but they can use them as a guide of risk. There is no way of tricking the system. If your car is obviously higher risk, you will not be able to claim it is in a lower group.

There are a few things you can do to bring down the cost of your cover:

• Don’t pay for anything you don’t have to – if you’re not going to be driving the car for a year, don’t take out an annual policy. Just insure yourself when you need with temporary car insurance.
• Secure it to the max – If you don’t have the best level of security for your car, then get it. Alarms and immobilisers can easily be retrofitted, and if you don’t lock it in the garage overnight then maybe you should start.
• Leave your car alone – don’t make modifications. The moment you do, you’ll be going up the groupings.
• Raise your voluntary excess – this can reduce your premium, as it will for any insurance quote, but don’t forget that you need to be able to afford it if you do need to make a claim.

If you’re looking for cheaper car insurance, you may want to consider temporary car insurance. To find out how much this will cost for the time you need, simply click ‘get a quote’ and enter your details.