Top 10 Cars With Highest Insurance Claims
Top 10 Cars With Highest Insurance Claims
It might sound obvious, but the Highway Loss Data Institute revealed in a new study that sporty cars and expensive cars tend to have more crashes, and those accidents generally result in more expensive insurance claims. The HLDI, a non-profit research group affiliated with the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety, published a study based on insurance claims for 2009-2011 vehicles.
The HLDI data looks at two main metrics: the number of insurance claims per 100 insured vehicle years, which gives a normalized interpretation of how likely certain cars are to have an accident; and average loss payments per insured vehicle per year, which indicates how much insurance companies pay out to particular vehicles.
Unsurprisingly, the HLDI found that the ten vehicles with the highest average annual insurance payouts are sports cars and luxury cars. The car with the highest overall insurance losses was the Ferrari California, racking up 2.6 accidents per insured vehicle year -- at an average insurance payout of $2132 per insured vehicle annually. Even though the Ferrari California has few accidents overall, any damage to the car is usually very expensive to put right.
"Naturally, expensive cars cost more to fix, which is why they have such high collision losses," HLDI senior vice president Kim Hazelbaker said in a statement. "Meanwhile, cars marketed for their powerful engines tend to crash more often, a phenomenon partly explained by the type of drivers they attract and by the style of driving they lend themselves to."
The data prove Hazelbaker's point. The top ten 2009-2011 vehicles with the highest annual insurance losses were:
Porsche Panamera Mercedes-Benz S-Class Maserati QuattroporteNissan GT-RBMW M3Porsche 911 Lexus ISBMW 7-Series
Meanwhile, the ten cars with the lowest annual insurance losses were generally inexpensive vehicles that don't encourage sporty driving:
Chevrolet TahoeJeep WranglerGMC Canyon Chevrolet Colorado
The HLDI report also breaks out the ten cars under $30,000 with the highest insurance claims. They are almost all sporty performance cars -- the type of vehicle purchased by young, inexperienced drivers. "Once you take out the luxury models, the list of vehicles with the highest collision losses is dominated by high-performance cars and small cars," HLDI's Hazelbaker said. The cars with highest collision losses under $30,000 are:
Subaru Impreza Honda Civic Nissan Altima
The HLDI report also looks at personal-injury protection claims from insurance data. While most states have "no fault" injury insurance, the 17 states without such coverage allow the HLDI to infer how well certain types of vehicles protect occupants from injury in a crash. According to the agency, small cars have a much higher rate of personal injury protection claims -- which could be construed to mean those vehicles are less safe in an accident. The top ten 2009-2011 cars with the highest personal injury protection claim rate are:
Toyota YarisKia RioNissan VersaHyundai AccentNissan Sentra
"We know that in the real world, if all else is equal, a larger, heavier vehicle does a better job protecting occupants than a smaller, lighter one," Hazelbaker said in a statement. "These claim frequencies demonstrate that clearly."
What do you think of the data? Do the report's findings make sense? Were you surprised by the data for your own car? Let us know by way of the comments section below.
Source: HLDI