I've compared between 2007 Volvo S60 2.5T and 2007 BMW 335i insurance premium rates. To my surprise, the premium on '07 Volvo S60 is higher than BMW 335i???

Any idea why?? I've thought BMW insurance rates should be higher than Volvos?

 

Insurance rates are mysterious indeed. There are several pieces to the puzzle. Some include: price of the vehicle, cost of repair for low-speed crash (minor damage), cost of repair for major damage, frequency in which they 'total' the car, theft, typical owner (avg age of owners). The part where Volvos of late are bad are the low-speed crash. Older Volvos were built like tanks. Newer ones take a hit just as well, but with the price of parts sky high even a small accident costs the insurance company loot. I know from personal experience. I had (what looked like) minor damage from a deer. Broken headlight glass and wrinkled hood - everything else was good. Cost the insurance company over $4K. That's the kind of thing that they look at when quoting premiums - how much will it cost THEM.

 

yeah but an 335 easily costs more than a s60, so that is really weird... They are in the pretty much the same class type car Id say...How Much of a difference are we talking?

Maybe the idea is behind the safety? More things might break in a s60 to reduce impact in comparison to a bmw, and therefore a s60 would be moremoney tofix? Iono just a guess here...

 

In a former life I thought statistics to graduate students and insurance premium calculations and credit risk calculations were my favorite questions on finals. Real insurance companies weigh your FICO (credit score) very heavily in calculating premiums rather than your driving record. So, since your credit score is going to figure in the same for either car, what fast_ride says is true for the premium calculation for the S60. Low impact crash recovery costs are very high for the newer Volvos, almost as much as an S-type Jaguar auto. That is why a new Volvo is going to be more expensive to insure than the BMW. By the way, the insurance people conduct their own tests to generate the data for crash costs, which I think is cool.

 

I assume the author is speaking of collision and not the liability portion of his quoted policy? Incidently, the FICO score is used primarily for the liability portion of the policy and not the 'collision' aspect. It is thought that a poor financial risk is just as poor a risk to other drivers on the road.

r.

 

Also the s60 is turboed the BMW is not.

 

The 2007 six from BMW has twin turbos...............believe it or it is contemplated that BMW will install the twin turbo as an option in the new 1 series. As BMW and turbos go the 2002 TII had a turbo back in the 60's.

r.

 

most Insurance companies use a rating based on something called the "relative average loss payment" The S60 turbo has a high loss rating of around 200 while a 3 series BMW has a loss index of around 120. A V70 has a loss rating of around 90 , The bigger the number the more you pay. Those S60 pilots seem to have some car control issues [sm=burnout.gif]