Car insurance company Admiral have been looking at car theft and what is taken, with some surprising results.
The most common items that are taken from vehicles, not including stereo systems, are individual CDs, satellite navigation systems and MP3 players. After these come jackets, mobiles and laptop computers. Perhaps a little more surprising though are some other items that Admiral found car thieves have taken, including disco lights, celery, sandwiches and a wet suit!
Admiral also worked out the typical value of items in the average family car, coming up with a figure of GBP2,800 per vehicle. With such a sum of items that can be taken it is important to ensure car insurance covers these different areas to make sure the value of goods taken is covered as well as the car itself.
It comes as little surprise to anyone that the young drivers on our roads today are being charged much more for their car insurance than their older counterparts. The differences though are considerable.
A study has been carried out by an independent body, looking at the typical premiums being paid to car insurance companies such as Swinton Insurance and others like them. The research has found a difference of 115 percent between the national average car insurance cost and that paid by young drivers. The average figure for the nation is GBP439, while young drivers are paying GBP989. This works out for the young driver at nearly 70 percent of their cars value.
Could this be the reason some young drivers go without insurance it has been asked. In fact some young drivers have even had insurance declined simply because of their age, though Swinton are not understood to be one of the insurers that has done this.
After a study of the data gained through the Tesco car insurance comparison site it has been found that car choice is determined a lot by the age of the driver.
The typical Jaguar driver, for example, is 47 years old, whilst if it is a Mercedes then they will be, on average, 43. Moving down a little on the age groups, Volvo drivers tend to be around 42 whilst Porsche drivers, specifically of the 911, Boxster and Cayenne will be around 40 years old.
These marques are only a small sample from the full list, but one thing that is immediately apparent is that, with the average value of these cars higher than the general runabout drivers may well need to be 40 plus in order to get car insurance cover at a reasonable premium, from Tesco Finance or anyone else.