owners of BMW, Mercedes and Tesla models as well as other premium automobiles may soon face higher insurance premiums as the result of new raw data sent to insurers.
Since 2009, Thatcham’s insurance rating system has placed automobiles into a group of between one and 50, using a capped algorithm to help insurers figure out what the cost of cover for a particular model of automobile must be. Although this process has not changed, Thatcham recently sent out a set of raw, uncapped data to insurers, which saw around 500 models of automobile hypothetically placed in groups higher than 50.
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Even though these higher groups are not official and the insurance group system has not changed, the insurers that received this data are still complimentary to use it to increase premiums on the automobiles in question, which are usually expensive, powerful, premium models.
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Which brands are affected?
Three of the worst-affected brands are BMW, Mercedes and Tesla. For example, the data placed a BMW i8 in uncapped group 66E, a Mercedes S65L AMG in group 60E and a Tesla model X P100D in group 58E.
Other affected brands include Audi, Jaguar, Land Rover, Nissan and Porsche. The highest category provided in the data was 77E, which the Audi R8 V10 performance Decennium was placed in.
