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How Cars Measure Up

We do the homework to help you understand how your car’s make and model affect your insurance premiums.

Do you know how a car’s information and insurance claims data affect your insurance?

The make, model, year, value and potential cost to repair your car all impact the cost of your insurance. To help you make an informed decision when buying or leasing a vehicle, we work with insurers to gather and analyze data every year on the number and cost of various insurance claims for the most popular Canadian cars, passenger vans, SUVs and pickup trucks.

How claims affect the cost of auto coverage

The cost to insure a car is subject to change for many reasons, for example:

  • Some vehicles are more susceptible to theft than others

  • Some cars may be better designed, include more safety features or are less likely to sustain serious damage due to a collision

  • Some vehicles are less expensive to repair

  • Some cars fare better than others in collisions, resulting in fewer injuries and minimal car damage

  • The car’s replacement value depreciates over time

See how your car measures up for lower insurance premiums

This comprehensive ranking of claims data shows you how the most popular types of cars, passenger vans, SUVs, trucks and wagons are rated for insurance premiums. Check out how different types of cars are rated and see how yours compares.

This year’s edition of “How Cars Measure Up” presents the results for 2004 through 2022 models where at least 1,500 of each of the models were insured between 2017 and 2022. The information comes entirely from actual insurance claims data, collected from most of the car insurance companies in Canada.

Latest edition: How Cars Measure Up, 2023 - Excel (English | French)

Choosing a car that ranks better in its claims ranking can potentially add up to less expensive insurance premiums.

How to use How Cars Measure Up

You can sort How Cars Measure Up data for the following types of coverage claims:

  • Collision claims statistics across Canada

  • Comprehensive claims statistics (Comp) across Canada, including theft

  • Direct Compensation Property Damage (DCPD) across Canada

  • Accident Benefits (AB), Ontario only

You can also sort data by vehicle information such as:

  • Make

  • Model

  • Body Style

  • Model Year

For additional information on car ratings, contact your insurance representative.

What the ratings mean

When it comes to how cars measure up in these tables, the lower the result in each relative claim cost index, the better the rating. To make it easier to read the tables, we consider “100” to be an average rating in any category. So, if the result you’re looking at is “122” that means it’s 22% above average. A result of 87 is 13% below average. Remember, lower ratings are better.

We’ve also made it a bit easier to scan the table by colour coding the rankings:

  • Green indicates a result of less than 81 (19% below average)

  • Yellow indicates a result of between 81 and 120

  • Red indicates a result of more than 120 (20% above average)

White or no colour indicates less than 1,500 vehicles were insured during the defined period, so there’s not enough data to report on that particular vehicle.

Understanding how a car measures up can help save you money

It’s important to research your options and look for a car insurance company that will give you the coverage, price and value you need. Depending on where you live (for example, in provinces with public auto insurance) you may be required to purchase insurance directly from the government.

Private insurance companies offer many types of auto insurance policies and compete based on price, coverage and service. An insurance representative can help you find the best options and value.