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Whether your van is for business use or a handy family runaround, prices for van insurance depend on several things - but one of them is which van insurance group it's in.
The Association of British Insurer’s (ABI’s) Group Rating System categorises vans or light commercial vehicles (LCVs) into groups, to provide insurers with their relative risk.
Every make and model of van is assigned to an insurance group. Generally, the lower the group your van is in, the less your insurance will cost.
Vans produced before 2016 are placed in groups one to 20, with group one typically paying the least and group 20 the most.
The number of groups has increased since 2016, so vans produced after this year are rated from groups 21 to 50.
Vans in group 21 are likely to have cheaper insurance premiums and those in group 50 will be the most expensive to cover.
But don't buy a van solely based on its insurance group – it’s only a guide and just one aspect of what affects the price of insurance. Insurers are influenced by it, but they also base their premiums on their own experiences of claims.
So, compare van insurance prices with several providers before making any firm decisions.
No, while they work in a similar way and are both based on risk, there’s one main difference - whereas there are 50 car insurance groups, for vans made after 2016 there are only 29 groups.
These groups range between 21 and 50. So if you have a van that’s less than seven years old, the lowest group it can now fall into is 21.
Vans older than this will be placed into insurance groups numbered between one to 20.
Unfortunately, this can make things slightly confusing as, unlike cars, the lowest van insurance group could either be one or 21 depending on the age of the vehicle.
The main factors that influence a van’s group include:
Large, heavy vehicles are more likely to cause serious damage in an accident, so bigger vans with a higher gross vehicle weight (GVW) might find themselves towards the top end of the insurance groups.
Powerful, big engines will also move a van into a higher insurance group.
Features such as high-security door locks or alarm/immobilisation systems will help lower the group rating.
Vans fitted with an autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system are at less risk of low-speed bumps, helping keep them in a lower insurance group.
The price of its spare parts, as well as the cost and time the van takes to repair are important - the less it costs to fix, the lower the insurance group it’s likely to be in.
Whether you're veering towards a VW Transporter or fancy a Ford Transit, you can compare models and find out what insurance group a van is in by using the Thatcham Research vehicle search tool.
To do this, you’ll need to enter details including the van’s make and model, the year it was manufactured, its body style and fuel type.
The result will provide a number followed by a letter. The number is your van’s insurance group while the letter tells you the level of security that’s fitted to your van as standard:
When you take out cover for your van, you don’t need to tell the insurer your van’s insurance group as this information is provided automatically.
It's not just the type of van you drive that affects your insurance quote - it's you, as the driver, too. When calculating your premiums, insurers will take into account:
If you find a van that ticks all the boxes for your needs and it's in a low insurance group, it's a win-win, especially if you're a young, inexperienced driver or have a past driving conviction. It's always a good idea to choose a van with the smallest engine for your needs to avoid paying more than you have to.
But the insurance group doesn't tell the whole story - compare quotes and check costs for all the vans you're interested in - you might find you're better off paying a little more to insure a van that better fits your needs.
This can depend on lots of different factors. But generally, the smaller the van the less it will cost to insure. The same goes for the engine size.
Smaller vans with a basic level of specification will usually be cheaper to insure than one that has lots of extra features.
And because smaller engines mean lower speeds, there’s less risk to insurers which also helps to reduce the cost.
Van insurance is typically more expensive than car insurance but there's plenty you can do to keep the costs down, including:
Check out more top tips to save money on your van insurance.
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