InsuranceGroup
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How we source our data

Vehicle data: DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service

When you enter a registration, we call the official DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service (VES) API to confirm make, colour, fuel type, year of manufacture and engine size. We never store your registration after the lookup completes.

Insurance group data: Thatcham Research & the ABI

UK car insurance groups are set by the Group Rating Panel, run jointly by Thatcham Research and the Association of British Insurers (ABI). We maintain our own dataset of typical group ranges per make and model, researched from publicly available Group Rating Panel information. Where we hold an exact group for a specific derivative, we show it; where we don't, we show an honest typical range instead of guessing — we will never fabricate a precise group we can't stand behind.

From August 2024, Thatcham has been phasing in a Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) framework for newly launched model ranges. We flag this wherever it applies — see our group letters & VRR guide.

Cost estimates: our documented calculation

Every premium figure on this site is an estimate, not a quote. We calculate it from a base rate per insurance group, adjusted by these documented multipliers:

  • We start from a base rate for the car's insurance group (1–50), calibrated so group 1 sits around £220/yr and group 50 around £1,270/yr at our reference case.
  • We apply a driver age-band multiplier: younger and newly-qualified drivers carry a materially higher multiplier, reflecting industry-wide risk pricing patterns.
  • We apply a postcode risk-area multiplier based on the first part of the postcode (the outward code), reflecting local claims and theft rates.
  • We apply a car-age multiplier — brand new cars and very old cars both often cost slightly more to insure than a 5–8 year old car of the same group.
  • We apply a cover-type multiplier — Third Party Only can cost more than Comprehensive for some driver profiles, which is genuinely the case in the UK market and can surprise drivers.
  • The result is a low–central–high range, not a single number, because real quotes vary by insurer, no-claims discount, mileage, occupation and other factors we don't model.

Corrections

Spotted a mistake in a group or a model entry? Contact us and we'll review it.