Insurance for low emission cars

What constitutes a low emission car?

There is no definitive guide stating that this car is “low emission” and this one isn’t, so we’ll use the current Government car tax tables as a guide.

Cars that emit below 120g of CO2 per kilometre qualify for low car tax today, so let’s use that to select our cars to compare.

A word of warning here. Car tax tables are changing for new cars from April 2017, only new vehicles with zero emissions will have free car tax from then on. If you want more information, read our guide to car tax changes.

Do low emissions affect my insurance?

Before we check out the answer to that question, let’s start by saying that there are many things that affect your insurance. Some of them relate to you. Some of them relate to the car you drive.

For a start, there’s your age, how long you’ve been driving, whether you have any no claims bonus, any driving convictions and where you live. In addition, there’s the car you drive and how much it is worth to take into account.

Leaving aside the personal aspects as these will be different for each individual, the insurance industry has helpfully attributed an “insurance group,” a number ranging from 1 to 50 to each vehicle on the road.

Car insurance groups take account of:

• Repair costs
• Repair times
• New car values
• Parts prices
• Performance of the vehicle, e.g. the power and acceleration
• Safety features
• Bumpers
• Security features

A low car insurance grouping should then – all other things being equal – mean a cheaper car to insure.

Compare car insurance

So the good news is that low emission vehicles are generally in low insurance groups, which could mean cheaper insurance for you.

This however is less likely to be directly to do with the emission values themselves. It’s simply that these types of vehicle are relatively economical to repair and limited in performance terms.

Comparing car insurance prices is simple. Why not try it today and see what you can save? Simply add in details about you and the car you’re thinking about and let us do the rest.