Car insurance groups explained
Quick answer
A car insurance group is a 1–50 rating, set by the ABI/Thatcham Group Rating Panel, showing how expensive a car typically is to insure — group 1 is cheapest, group 50 most expensive. Insurers use it, alongside your personal details, as one factor in pricing your premium. Key facts below.
- 50 groups in total, numbered 1 (cheapest) to 50 (most expensive)
- Set by the Group Rating Panel: Thatcham Research + the ABI
- Based on repair cost, parts price, performance, security & safety
- From Aug 2024, new model ranges may also use the VRR framework
What is an insurance group, exactly? (Car insurance groups explained)
Every insurance group meaning — whatever the exact wording, whether that's a plain what is insurance group search, a car insurance group meaning question, or what does insurance group mean and what does car insurance group mean — comes back to the same source: the UK Group Rating Panel, jointly operated by Thatcham Research (the motor insurers' automotive research centre) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI). Together they publish and maintain what's often called the "ABI insurance group" or "Thatcham insurance groups" rating — the insurance groups meaning and insurance group meanings you'll find anywhere else on the web all trace back to this one independent 1–50 scale, used across the entire UK motor insurance market.
This page is our full car insurance group explained resource — an insurance group explained, insurance groups explained, car insurance groups explained UK and UK insurance groups explained guide all in one, whichever way you'd explain insurance groups in a search box.
What are insurance groups based on?
People ask this as what are insurance groups, what are car insurance groups, what are insurance groups for cars, what are the car insurance groups or what are the insurance groups for cars — the answer is the same regardless of phrasing. The panel scores each car insurance rating against factors including:
- Cost and time to repair typical crash damage
- Price and availability of replacement parts
- Performance — acceleration, top speed and power-to-weight
- New-car purchase price
- Thatcham-tested security (resistance to theft)
- Safety equipment and crash-test performance
The result is converted into one of the 50 insurance group numbers — this is what the industry means by insurance grouping. Comparison guides like the Parkers guide insurance groups, Parkers insurance groups, Parkers car insurance groups and Parkers insurance group pages reference the same underlying panel data (we aren't affiliated with Parkers or any other guide, including any general Parkers insurance page), as do most price-comparison sites.
How do insurance groups work in practice?
Whether you'd phrase it as how do insurance groups work, how do car insurance groups work or how does car insurance groups work: when a new model or trim launches, the manufacturer submits it to the Group Rating Panel, which returns a group. Insurers then use that car insurance code (or car insurance codes, across a model range) as one rating factor — combined with your age, postcode, claims history, annual mileage, occupation and more — to calculate your personal insurance group cost. Two drivers with identical car insurance numbers, car insurance ratings or car insurance ratings UK-wide on their vehicles can still get very different quotes, because the group is only one piece of the pricing picture — the same is true of any insurance ratings for cars, not just this site's figures.
The insurance group number meaning is worth repeating here too: whether you ask what is insurance group number or how many insurance groups are there, it always comes back to the same 1–50 scale set by the panel above.
The 2024 shift: Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR)
From August 2024, Thatcham Research began phasing in a new Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) methodology for newly launched model ranges, designed to reflect modern vehicle technology (ADAS, EV drivetrains, repair complexity) more precisely than the classic scale alone. Most existing cars on UK roads still carry a traditional 1–50 group; newer launches may show VRR data alongside or instead of it. We flag this wherever it applies on our group letters & VRR guide.
Where to check your car's group
Use our free insurance group checker for an instant, reg-based lookup, or browse the full car insurance groups list to compare every group's typical cost. If a car has a low group, see cheapest car insurance groups for how it stacks up against the rest of the low end — and if you've seen the rating called a "band", "category" or "bracket" elsewhere, they all mean exactly the same thing.
Frequently asked questions
What is an insurance group?
An insurance group is a rating from 1 to 50 given to every UK car model and trim by the Group Rating Panel, run jointly by Thatcham Research and the Association of British Insurers (ABI). Group 1 cars are typically cheapest to insure, group 50 the most expensive.
What does car insurance group mean for my premium?
It signals how costly your car is likely to be to insure relative to other cars, based on repair costs, parts prices, performance and safety — insurers use it as one input, alongside your personal risk factors, when calculating your premium.
What are car insurance groups for?
They give insurers, comparison sites and drivers a standardised, independent way to compare the relative cost-risk of different car models, without every insurer having to rate every car from scratch.
How do car insurance groups work?
The Group Rating Panel scores a new car (or new trim/engine variant) against around 15 factors — including repair times, parts costs, performance, and Thatcham-tested security and safety ratings — and converts that score into a 1–50 group. From August 2024, newly launched model ranges are increasingly assessed under the emerging Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) framework alongside the classic scale.
What is the insurance group number?
It's simply the 1–50 rating itself. You'll sometimes see a letter after the number (e.g. 15E) — that flags a specific trim/derivative rather than changing the number's meaning. See our group letters guide for more.
How many insurance groups are there?
50. Every rated car sits somewhere on the 1 (cheapest) to 50 (most expensive) scale — see our full car insurance groups list for every group with a typical price range.
What is a car insurance code?
"Car insurance code" and "car insurance numbers" are informal names UK drivers use for the same thing: the 1–50 insurance group number assigned by the Thatcham/ABI Group Rating Panel.
What is a car insurance rating?
A car's "insurance rating" is, again, the same 1–50 insurance group — a standardised score of how expensive that model typically is to insure, independent of any one insurer's own pricing.
Is an ABI insurance group the same as a Thatcham insurance group?
"ABI insurance group" and "Thatcham insurance groups" both refer to the same rating body: the Group Rating Panel, jointly run by the Association of British Insurers and Thatcham Research. There's only one official 1–50 scale, whichever name you use for it.
Does Parkers use the same insurance group data as this site?
Parkers (and other independent car-buying guides) publish insurance group figures for individual models, sourced from the same underlying Thatcham/ABI Group Rating Panel data we use — we aren't affiliated with Parkers, but the numbers should match for the same car and trim.
What does insurance grouping mean?
"Insurance grouping" is the process the Group Rating Panel uses to place a car into one of the 50 groups — the verb form of the same 1–50 rating explained on this page.
What determines the insurance group cost?
Cost varies by group — group 1 typically costs a few hundred pounds a year to insure, group 50 well over a thousand, before your personal factors are even applied. See our insurance groups list for a typical estimate at every group, or the cost estimator for your own numbers.
More on how the rating system works
How groups are decided
The Group Rating Panel, Thatcham's testing and the factors behind each number.
Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR)
The 1–99 successor framework for model ranges launched since August 2024.
VRR vs insurance groups
Side by side: which applies to your car, and why the two scales aren't comparable.
Can an insurance group change?
Why classic groups are fixed, what VRR changes, and the postcode myth.
Sources & further reading
- Thatcham Research — The motor insurers' automotive research centre. Co-runs the Group Rating Panel that sets UK insurance groups, and publishes the Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) framework.
- Association of British Insurers (ABI) — The trade body for UK insurers. Co-runs the Group Rating Panel behind the 1–50 insurance group scale.
- DVLA — Get vehicle information — The official GOV.UK service for vehicle details by registration. Our checker uses the DVLA's Vehicle Enquiry Service API, the same underlying record.