Small Cars = Big Insurance Premiums?
09/05/2008
Consumer-targeted auto insurance site Insure.com released a study recently shedding some interesting light on the real cost of smaller cars: sure, they get better gas mileage than the heavy SUVs and monster pickups we were all driving until gas started rising above $3.50 / gallon, but they actually cost money when it comes to insurance.
Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety explains, "Small cars tend to increase insurance costs because they get into more crashes."
Can this be true? Actually, yes. Compare the average insurance premium of the Ford F-Series pickup to that of the Honda Civic, which recently supplanted the Ford as America's best selling personal vehicle, and you'll find that across the country the premium for the truck is about $1,200, while the fuel-efficient Civic costs more than $1,600 to insure, a difference that may make the fuel economy offset less advantageous than it would seem.
Honda isn't the only small car that tops the insurance cost of the pickup truck, though. The Toyota Prius, poster child for hybrid cars and the green automotive movement may get fuel economy of 48 mpg in the city, but it still costs almost $1,400 to insure.
