The cheapest cars to insure

by Rachel Wait on 10 August 2010  |  9 comments
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Considering buying a car, but want to keep your car insurance costs to a minimum? Find out which cars are the cheapest to insure...

If you’re thinking of buying a car in the coming weeks or months, one of your biggest concerns might be the cost of car insurance.

Let's face it, insuring your car can work out to be pretty expensive. Fortunately, however, there are ways to keep those costs down – one of which is to make sure you buy the right type of car in the first place.

12 cheap cars

When deciding how much drivers should pay for their car insurance, insurers place all cars into categories. As of January this year, those categories were broadened out from 1-20, to 1-50. The higher the category, the higher your car insurance premium will be.

So which cars are at the cheaper end of the scale? Well, to be honest, the list is rather extensive so I simply don’t have the room to type it out in full (and I can promise you that if I did, you would soon get bored).

However, to give you an idea of what some of those cars are, here are 12 of the cheapest. All cars mentioned fall into categories 1 or 2, according to Parker’s.

• Citroen C1
• Fiat Panda
• Ford Ka
• Ford Fiesta
• Peugeot 107
• Renault Clio
• SEAT Ibiza
• Skoda Fabia
• Toyota Yaris
• Vauxhall Corsa
• Volkswagen Fox
• Volkswagen Polo

(Note that some versions of these cars will be in a higher category if they have a larger engine and are more high-spec.)

For a more extensive list, check out the categories on the Parker’s website.

Why these?

So what makes these cars so cheap to insure? Well, for a start, they’re all reasonably cheap cars to buy so it stands to reason that they will also be cheap to insure.

However, perhaps most importantly, insurance costs on these cars are also likely to be lower because repair costs on these cars are lower. Car parts are generally more readily available and cheaper for these particular car models - which means repairing them doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

What's more, if you were to write-off your car after an accident, the less your insurer has to pay out to replace the car, the lower your car insurance premium will be.

Other factors

Of course, while the specific make and model of the car can influence how much you pay for your car insurance, it’s not likely to be the sole deciding factor. After all, there is an array of other factors that also contribute to how much you’ll end up forking out for your insurance. 

As a rule of thumb, if you want to keep your costs down, you should try to choose a car that’s fairly new, but not brand new – so one that’s about three or four years old. It’s also worth plumping for a less powerful car with a smaller engine - a 1.1 litre, for example - because insurers regard them as safer cars.

You should also avoid cars that have been modified – ie those that have had spoilers or alloy wheels added, or those that have had their engine size boosted. Insurers view owners of these cars as riskier drivers, so premiums will be higher. What’s more, modified cars are more likely to be vandalised, so again, insurers will end up charging you more.  

Similarly, you should avoid choosing a sporty model because these cars are more powerful and are likely to be driven faster – so the chances of having an accident are greater.

Three more ways to cut costs

Once you have gone ahead and bought your car, there are even more ways to help keep the cost of your car insurance to a minimum. Here are just three of them:

Increase the security

Keep your car in a secure place, such as your garage or driveway, and make sure you state this on your insurance application. It’s also a good idea to add an immobiliser, alarm and tracker to your car as this will lower the risk of it being stolen and therefore reduce your premiums.

Don’t pay monthly

Avoid paying for your car insurance in monthly instalments. Paying for your insurance in one go is likely to save you around 10% to 20%. If you can’t afford to do this, pay for your insurance with a 0% on new purchases credit card such as the Tesco Clubcard Credit Card. This card offers 13 months interest-free on all purchases so you’ll have more than a year to pay off your balance without worrying about paying interest.

Increase your excess

The excess is how much you have to pay out if you make a claim. When you apply for your insurance, you’ll have to state how much voluntary excess you would like - ie, how much you want to pay on top of your compulsory excess.

By increasing the voluntary excess, you will be lowering your car insurance premiums. So you may want to consider this to keep your costs to a minimum.

You can find more tips on keeping your insurance costs own in 10 top tips to slash your car insurance.

More: Cost of car insurance jumps by 11.5% | Five ways to make money from your car

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