Average Car Insurance Cost UK 2026: £600 a Year
The average car insurance cost in the UK is around £600 a year in 2026 for comprehensive cover. The headline is unchanged this quarter, but the market has turned: the Confused.com Price Index rose 1% (£8) to £719 in Q2 2026 — its first quarterly increase since the December 2023 peak of £995 — while the ABI paid premium rose £6 to £566 in Q2 2026. This UK car insurance cost index breaks the average down four ways: by driver age, by UK region, by vehicle insurance-group band, and by quarterly trend. For the question-led explainer see how much is car insurance in the UK; region-by-region deep dives sit in the regional cost indexes.
Where the average UK car insurance cost sits in mid-2026
Two authoritative trackers anchor this index. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) Motor Insurance Premium Tracker — built from roughly 28 million live policies — puts the average paid comprehensive premium at £566, its latest published reading (Q2 2026), up £6 (1%) on the previous quarter’s £560. The Confused.com Price Index, which measures the prices drivers are quoted across some 250,000 enquiries a quarter, has now moved: it recorded £719 in Q2 2026, up 1% (£8) on Q1. Quoted prices run ahead of the discounted rates most renewing drivers actually pay, so taken together the two series still put the typical 2026 comprehensive premium at around £600 — the figure we use as the average car insurance cost throughout this site.
The important change this quarter is direction, not level. Prices had fallen for nine consecutive quarters, taking the Confused.com index £284 (29%) below its £995 record of December 2023. Q2 2026 broke that run — the first quarterly rise since the end of 2023 — although premiums are still 5% (£38) cheaper than a year ago, down from £757. Claims costs are the reason. The average accidental-damage claim reached £3,699 in Q1 2026, up 8% in a single quarter; of £2.9bn paid out that quarter, £1.9bn went on vehicle repairs, 3% more than in Q4 2025; and the average paid claim has risen 42% since 2020, from £3,842 to £5,464. Add repair labour up around 40% since 2022, parts and paint climbing roughly 16% a year, Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) recalibration that can turn a £300 bumper job into a £1,500 claim, and Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) frozen at 12%, and 2026 now looks like the floor rather than a staging post on the way down.
Average annual premium by age band
Age is the single biggest pricing factor in this index. The youngest band pays roughly four times what a driver in their fifties pays, because telematics and claims data still show new drivers at far higher risk. Young-driver prices are also the fastest-falling part of the market — the 17–20 band is down about 17% year-on-year into 2026, and roughly 78% of 17–20s pay less on a black-box policy. This index reports band averages only. See our full guide to 17-year-old car insurance costs for age-specific pricing, the cheapest cars to insure and the ways to bring the number down, or our wider breakdown of car insurance costs by driver age.
Source: Confused.com Price Index Q2 2026; ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker Q2 2026 (latest published); NimbleFins 2026.
| Age band | UK average | vs. UK mean |
|---|---|---|
| 17 years | £1,695 | +183% |
| 17–20 band | £1,813 | +202% |
| 17–24 band | £1,533 | +156% |
| 25–34 years | £810 | +35% |
| 35–44 years | £625 | +4% |
| 45–64 years | £445 | −26% |
| 65+ years | £390 | −35% |
Sources: Confused.com Price Index Q2 2026 (March–May 2026) — age 17 £1,695, the 17–20 band £1,813 and the 17–24 band £1,533 against a £719 all-ages quoted average; ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker Q2 2026 (latest published); NimbleFins 2026. Young-driver rows are taken directly from the published Confused.com age figures; the 25+ bands are moved each quarter by the published Confused.com quarterly change (+1% in Q2 2026) and rounded to the nearest £5. “vs. UK mean” is benchmarked to the £600 UK average car insurance cost. Age-specific detail lives in our 17-year-old car insurance guide.
Average annual premium by region
Where you park overnight can swing your premium by more than £300. London leads on theft, traffic density and uninsured-driver rates — there are over 1 million uninsured drivers on UK roads, funding a Motor Insurers' Bureau levy of roughly £15 per policy. The South West and North East remain cheapest. The stand-out move in Q2 2026 is Northern Ireland, where Confused.com recorded the steepest quarterly rise anywhere in the UK — up 8% (£73) to £1,020 quoted — pushing it above the North West in this index. Inner London was the only area to get cheaper, easing 0.4% to £1,088 quoted, so the North–South gap narrowed slightly even as the national average rose. Regional detail for each nation and English region is in our regional cost indexes.
Source: Confused.com Price Index Q2 2026 (regional); ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker Q2 2026.
| Region | UK average | 17–24 drivers | vs. UK mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| London (Inner) | £810 | £1,415 | +35% |
| Northern Ireland | £670 | £1,275 | +12% |
| North West | £665 | £1,220 | +11% |
| West Midlands | £635 | £1,160 | +6% |
| Scotland | £510 | £990 | −15% |
| Wales | £495 | £945 | −18% |
| South West | £480 | £920 | −20% |
| North East | £480 | £915 | −20% |
Sources: Confused.com Price Index Q2 2026 (regional); ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker Q2 2026 (latest published). Quoted Q2 2026 reference points: Inner London £1,088 (−0.4% on the quarter, the only fall), Northern Ireland £1,020 (+8%, the steepest rise), South West £504. Blended figures here are moved by each region’s published Q2 2026 quarterly change, restated on a paid-premium basis and rounded to the nearest £5.
How much the car itself moves the average cost
After age, the vehicle is the biggest lever on the average car insurance cost. Every car is placed into one of 50 insurance groups by the Group Rating Panel, administered by Thatcham Research for the ABI, and cars first registered from 1 August 2024 also carry a Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) from 1 to 99 scoring performance, damageability, repairability, safety and security. This index reports the picture at band level only: the six ten-point bands below show how far the £600 UK average stretches once vehicle risk is priced in, from around £435 at the bottom of the scale to about £1,305 at the top — a spread of roughly three times.
Every band has its own detailed guide — see car insurance groups 1-50, or jump to group 1, group 10, group 20, group 30, group 40 or group 50. Those pages carry the model lists and the figures for a single group; use the table here for the whole-market view, and compare individual cars in our insurance cost by vehicle hub. If you are not sure where your car sits, the insurance group checker will tell you.
| Insurance group band | Typical car | UK average |
|---|---|---|
| Groups 1–5 | Hyundai i10, Kia Picanto, VW up! | £435 |
| Groups 6–10 | Ford Fiesta, Vauxhall Corsa | £510 |
| Groups 11–20 | VW Golf, Ford Focus, Audi A3 | £615 |
| Groups 21–30 | BMW 3 Series, Tesla Model 3 | £790 |
| Groups 31–40 | Audi A5, larger SUVs | £990 |
| Groups 41–50 | Performance / luxury models | £1,305 |
Sources: Thatcham Research / ABI Group Rating Panel 2026; Quotezone insurance-group index 2026; NimbleFins; moved by the Confused.com Q2 2026 quarterly change and rounded to the nearest £5. Band averages are indicative for a 35–44 driver on comprehensive cover and are published at band level only — for the figures on a single group, use the car insurance groups 1-50 guides.
UK average premium: December 2023 peak to Q2 2026
After the December 2023 record of £995, the Confused.com quoted-price index fell for nine consecutive quarters to a two-year low early in 2026. Q2 2026 ended that run: the index rose about 1% to £719, the first quarterly increase since the end of 2023 — still around 28% (£276) below the peak. Premiums are nonetheless still 5% (£38) below the £757 recorded a year earlier, so 2026 remains a cheaper year than 2025 overall. The ABI paid-premium series tells the same story more gently, easing about 11% from its 2024 high to £566 in its latest published quarter (Q2 2026), up £6 on the £560 recorded in Q1 2026. The table tracks both series so editors can cite the measure that matches their context.
Source: Confused.com Price Index (WTW) December 2023 to Q2 2026; ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker to Q1 2026.
| Period | Confused.com (quoted) | ABI (paid) | YoY change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2023 (peak) | £995 | £635 | +25% |
| Q4 2024 | £834 | £600 | −16% |
| Q4 2025 | £726 | £565 | −13% |
| Q2 2026 (latest) | £719 | £566 | −5% |
Sources: Confused.com Price Index (WTW) December 2023–Q2 2026; ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker 2024–Q1 2026. Q2 2026 was the first quarterly rise (about 1%) since December 2023, yet still −5% (£38) year-on-year against £757. ABI 2024 figures interpolated to a paid-premium basis; the ABI Q2 2026 tracker now reports £566 paid, up £6 on Q1 2026.
The cost drivers behind the 2026 average
The headline premium is the sum of pressures that mostly point upward, even in a falling market. Claims inflation is the biggest, and it is what turned the market in Q2 2026: the average accidental-damage claim reached £3,699 in Q1 2026, up 8% in a single quarter, of the £2.9bn the ABI reports paid out that quarter £1.9bn went on vehicle repairs (3% more than in Q4 2025), and the average paid claim has risen 42% since 2020, from £3,842 to £5,464. UK motor claims hit a record £9.9bn in 2023, with repair labour up around 40% since 2022 and parts and paint climbing roughly 16% a year. Modern safety tech cuts crashes but raises bills — recalibrating the cameras and radar behind an ADAS windscreen can turn a £300 job into a £1,500 one.
Theft is the other accelerant. Keyless-entry relay attacks helped push theft payouts to £669m, up 35%, concentrated in high-value SUVs and EVs. Fraud and the 1 million-plus uninsured drivers on UK roads add a Motor Insurers' Bureau levy of about £15 to every honest policy. On top of the risk price sits Insurance Premium Tax at 12% — a flat surcharge the driver pays regardless of claims experience.
Your own record then scales the base price. A single SP30 speeding endorsement typically adds 10–25%; a DR10 drink-driving conviction can double the premium and pushes most drivers to a specialist broker; an IN10 for driving uninsured loads premiums heavily for four years; and a TT99 totting-up ban means specialist cover on return to the road. The fastest levers in your control are vehicle choice (a lower-rated vehicle band), mileage, where the car is kept overnight, and — for under-25s — telematics. Explore the full picture by conviction type or browse our guides hub.
How the Cost Index is compiled
This index blends two published UK benchmarks. The ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker reports the average premium drivers actually pay, drawn from roughly 28 million policies and published quarterly. The Confused.com Price Index (compiled with WTW) reports the cheapest premium drivers are quoted, from around 250,000 enquiries each quarter; quoted figures sit higher than paid figures, which is why both are shown. Age, regional and insurance-group splits combine these with published averages from NimbleFins, Quotezone and Thatcham Research. All figures are comprehensive cover, private use, and exclude quotes above the 99th percentile. Age, regional and vehicle-band figures are restated each quarter by the published Confused.com quarterly change and rounded to the nearest £5. The £600 headline is the blended figure we use consistently across this site for cross-page comparability; it is unchanged for Q2 2026 because the ABI paid series barely moved (£560 to £566) and the quoted index rose only 1%. Group-by-group detail is published on our car insurance groups pages rather than here, so this index stays a single whole-market view of the average car insurance cost. This dataset is free to cite for editorial use with attribution to “Car Insurance Expert UK Cost Index, 2026”.
UK car insurance cost: common questions
Our sources
- ABI Motor Insurance Premium Tracker (Q2 2026, latest published) — average paid comprehensive premium of £566, up £6 (1%) on Q1 2026; £2.9bn of claims paid, £1.9bn of it vehicle repairs; average accidental-damage claim £3,699 (up 8% on the quarter); the ~11% fall from peak.
- Confused.com Price Index / WTW (Q2 2026) — quoted average of £719, up 1% (£8) on the quarter and down 5% (£38) year-on-year from £757; the first rise since the £995 December 2023 peak; regional splits including Inner London £1,088 (−0.4%) and Northern Ireland £1,020 (+8%); average paid claim up 42% since 2020.
- NimbleFins & Quotezone (2026) — age-band and insurance-group average premiums.
- Thatcham Research / ABI Group Rating Panel — the 1–50 insurance groups and the new Vehicle Risk Rating (VRR) 1–99 scale.
- gov.uk & HM Treasury — Insurance Premium Tax held at 12%.
- Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) — 1m+ uninsured drivers and the ~£15 per-policy levy.
Reviewed by the Car Insurance Expert editorial team
Figures blend the ABI paid-premium tracker (Q2 2026, latest published) with the Confused.com quoted-price index (Q2 2026) to a £600 blended average used consistently across the site; reviewed for accuracy by the Car Insurance Expert editorial team.
Last updated: 20 August 2026