What is a Car Insurance Group?

Essentially, this is classification system for all manufactured production vehicles produced by the Association of British Insurers (ABI). The purpose is to allow ABI members and Lloyds syndicates to assess the risk of a vehicle. The car insurance group rating along with many other factors is then used to calculate insurance premiums. Car group ratings generally range from numbers one to twenty. Small and inexpensive cars often receive low car group ratings from between 1 and 9 compared to medium, family, executive, to sports cars which generally receive higher group ratings.

It is worth noting that ABI car group ratings are advisory and not all insurers use this information when deciding how much to charge consumers for car insurance. The ABI group ratings are freely available to consumers and are often published in high profile car magazines alongside other individual data to help consumers understand the costs of owning a vehicle.

Are any cars excluded from these ratings?

Only volume manufactured production vehicles produced for the UK market are included, therefore don’t expect to find car group classifications for imported, customised, replica, modified, customised  and kit cars. It is worth mentioning that although there is no published information, insurers who provide cover on these types of vehicles will form their own view regarding what the car group should be assuming this forms part of their insurance premium calculations.