The National Govt has introduced risk ratings for Motor vehicles in what they say is an attempt to make insurance rates cheaper. ACC had an operating surplus last year of $2.1 billion.

An analysis of the accounts showed the motor vehicle levy account posted a surplus of $945.5 million for the year

Minister Nikki Kaye says-

Under risk rating, cars are grouped into four levy bands, and levies are based on how safe a car is in a crash. Around 85% of cars will be risk rated using a robust system developed by Monash University, based on data collected from over 5.5 million real life crashes reported to police in Australia and New Zealand since 1987.

Newer cars present a challenge because less crash data is available, so these cars will be risk rated based on simulated crash testing.

It’s not just owners of new cars who will benefit from risk rating. There are many car models more than 10 years old in the safest levy band. And all car owners pay reduced levies from 1 July.

According to the ACC website the basis of the levy calculartion process is data collected from over 5.5 million police reported crashes in Australia and New Zealand since 1987 where someone was killed or seriously injured.

Driver protection (crashworthiness) and protection for other road users (aggressivity) were taken into consideration by Monash University when they analysed the data and the levy bands were calculated.

As far as possible, the levy bands reflect safety performance related to vehicle design and control for a range of non-vehicle related factors such as gender, age, speed and number of vehicles involved.

I suppose this has to be seen as good news but in fact we’ve been getting seriously ripped off for years and I suspect the govt is still being a bit stingy. I would wait until I see what the operating surplus is next year before I’d get too enthusiastic over this.

Also. there could be a bit of argument over the classifications, as less common cars could well be subject to statistical distortions. I’m surprised to see my F250 isn’t in the safest category. I’m sure that in any accident with all of the small Japanese cars on the road I’d be a lot safer in the truck.

The ratings for your car can be found here.

Above link is a PDF tabling all car models.

For basic info go here