Rav 4 Insurance Group!

[pmb]

Was watching Top Gear at the weekend and they were 'testing' compact diesel SUV's. The Rav fell at the first hurdle due to the insurance group. I was somewhat surprised by this so have checked in What Car (other magazines are available). If you look at the petrol Rav it is group 28. The two vehicles they used in the end were the Mazda CX-5 and the VW Tiguan. Looking at the petrol versions for these the groups are 17 and 18 for equivalent models(the diesels show the same differences but my next car will be petrol). The question is why are there these big differences?

[Parts-King]

Pretty straight forward really, it's all about risk, cost of replacement / repairs / parts etc

The AA do a good explanation

http://www.theaa.com/insurance/car-insurance-groups.html

Kingo

[CharlieFarlie]

My Jag XF is a late 2009.. 3.0 V6 Twin turbo diesel mapped to 315BHP and 690NM of tourque. Value now circa 20K.. Cost of insurance £230....

My Rav4 T180 2.2 Turbo Diesel mapped (Via Lindop kit) to circa 210 BHP current value circa 6K Cost of insurance £420.....

Same Company

Same Drivers and named drivers

Same everything...

Work that out.........

[Merseyshark]

CF, does the Lindop kit count as a performance modification, thereby upping the insurance premium ??

[Parts-King]

CF, does the Lindop kit count as a performance modification, thereby upping the insurance premium ??

Yes

Some insurance companies wont charge you any more, others see it as another profit opportunity. You will just have to see your own companies take on the situation, you might be lucky, quite a few are

Kingo

[firemac]

My Jag XF is a late 2009.. 3.0 V6 Twin turbo diesel mapped to 315BHP and 690NM of tourque. Value now circa 20K.. Cost of insurance £230....

My Rav4 T180 2.2 Turbo Diesel mapped (Via Lindop kit) to circa 210 BHP current value circa 6K Cost of insurance £420.....

Same Company

Same Drivers and named drivers

Same everything...

Work that out.........

Can't say much about the groupings but we've always found the premiums for our RAV's reasonable.

My wife insures her 02-reg for £200 p.a. fully comp with two named drivers on.

My 3-dr 54-rg is £230 p.a. fully comp with my wife as a named driver.

I've just insured a 12-reg XTR 2.2 auto for £264 p.a. fully comp with wife on as named driver.

All the policies have legal cover and courtesy cars included.

[CharlieFarlie]

From memory it cost 15 quid or so for including the tuning kit...... Not bad but the the premium as a whole is daft...

[Tech01]

If 'cost of parts' is a significant factor, then Mitsubishi's 4x4s should produce some fairly staggering premiums. (A friend of mine repairs 4x4s regularly, and parts prices are among the highest.)

Any evidence of this?

[CharlieFarlie]

Risk is a huge factor... Figures of the amount of cars or types that have claims against them make up for the silly figures....

Here is another example...

My Wifes 2009 wee Ford Fiesta automatic 1.4 costs slightly more to insure than the Jag...........

Again Same company (LV) Same drivers ect ect

When questioned about this the LV rep said well so the number Fiestas in comparison to Jaguar XFs is far far higher so that jacks up the figures... Risk as Kingo has pointed out above.. More Fiestas means more claims percentage wise..

But still out of the three cars we have here sat on the drive the Rav costs far and above the most.. So does the above explanation stack up ?

I mean there are thousands and thousands of Fiestas fair enough.. And not so many Jag XFs in comparison of course.. But Rav4s aint exactly that common are they,

[DjRav]

Er, yes.