The premise kind of makes sense: Less car should equal less money. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that having a small car saves you money on your insurance.

Discover this fact for yourself by entering your zip code and comparing car insurance rates now!

Factors like your age and driving record far outweigh things such as your vehicle’s size or body color, although some actuaries may weigh them when determining rates.

Does size matter when it comes to auto insurance?

Okay, here’s a puzzler: Which do you think costs more to insure even though both cars are the same size? A 2012 Kia Forte Koup (with a sticker price of $17,200) or a Mercedes SL (starting at $135,400)? Think hard. Well, it turns out that the insurance for the Mercedes SL costs $22,536, or about $5,300 more than the total cost of the Forte Koup.

It would be fairer to say that the size of a car’s sticker price would be more of a determining factor in the price of your auto insurance than the size of your car. There simply isn’t any evidence, from state insurance commissions or studies of the most expensive cars, to say that car size is a significant factor in car insurance rates.

What are factors that can lower auto insurance rates?

You’re tempted to say “just about anything”, but there are many factors more important than size that will determine what you pay for auto insurance. You’ll notice that there’s no mention of the car’s size as being a factor.

• Your age: Actuaries use statistics to determine your rates and drivers under the age of 30 are in more accidents. They, therefore, pay more for auto insurance. In fact, in one test that was done for young drivers for this site http://www.financialmentoring.net/Car_Insurance_WA.pdf the premium was almost double when a person under 25 was compared with a person in his forties. The same insurance was used for the same car but the premium was twice as much.
• Your gender: Young women are generally safer drivers than young men and some states, such as Washington, allow insurers to charge less using this information.
• Your car’s price and your driving patterns: The price, not the size, of your car can increase your premiums because expensive cars are more expensive to repair than low-cost cars. How you use your car can determine what your rates are. Do you drive it 20 miles back and forth to work every day? Or do you drive it several hundred miles in a week for business reasons? The more you drive, the more likely your premium will be higher.
• Your driving and claims history: If you’re a driver with multiple accidents, then you’re going to pay more for auto insurance. Your rates will also be higher if you’ve made multiple auto insurance claims.

All of these factors weigh more in determining your auto insurance rates than the size of your vehicle. Furthermore, there are things that you can do as a driver that can lower your rates that have nothing at all to do with the size of your car.

You can get discounts if your car has certain safety features like airbags and other passive restraints. You can get discounts if you’re a good student. You can get discounts if you insure more than one vehicle, no matter the size, with one insurance company. You can get discounts if you buy different kinds of insurance from the same company. This has nothing to do with car size.

Do insurance commissions show a correlation between vehicle size and the price of car insurance?

The state insurance commissions are supposed to be the watchdogs of insurance companies and they often have advice on how to save money on auto insurance fees. Of the three that were quickly sampled, none of them mentioned the size of the vehicle as a significant factor.

California state insurance Dave Jones gives all kind of tips on how to save money on auto insurance. His advice ranges from getting liability-only coverage on older cars to multi-line discounts. He even recommends possibly taking on a higher deductible. There is no mention of how the size of your car affects your car insurance rates.

Likewise, Kansas State Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger provides some tips on how to save money as well. She suggests maintaining a good driving record, shopping around using online quote services, and paying your premium well in advance. She makes no mention of the size of your car.

On the page of the Pennsylvania insurance department, there are also tips provided on how to lower your insurance rates. The helpful advice includes multiple vehicle discounts and multi-line policies. You’re even warned that personal effects like cell phones and CDs within your car that are not installed by the manufacturer are generally not covered, unless specifically declared on your policy. There is not one word about how small your car needs to be in order to lower your rates.

Bottom line: The size of your car simply has no bearing on the cost of your insurance rates. If you wonder if you’ll pay through the nose for your insurance policy, you are better off looking at the age of the driver, their driving record, even their credit record and the price of the car before such considerations as “size” are even taken into account.

But see for yourself by entering your zip code and exploring online car insurance rates for yourself!