Insurance losses

Auto insurance covers damage to vehicles and property in crashes plus injuries to the people involved in the crashes. Different insurance coverages pay for vehicle damage versus injuries. Different insurance coverages also may apply depending on who's at fault  first-party insurance pays for your own losses, while third-party pays for losses to other people and property for which you're liable.

Losses vary widely among vehicles under all six coverages  even vehicles that are similar in size and type.

These tables show insurance losses for hundreds of passenger vehicles grouped by body style and size undersix insurance coverages: collision, property damage liability, comprehensive personal injury protection, medical payment, and bodily injury.

Results are based on the loss experience of 2005-07 models from their first sales through May 2008. For vehicles that were newly introduced or redesigned during these years, the results shown in this publication are based only on the most recent model years for which the vehicle designs were unchanged — either 2006-07 or 2007 only. Results are grouped according to vehicle body style and then according to size.

All losses are stated in relative terms, with 100 representing the average injury, collision, or theft loss for all vehicles. For example, a result of 122 is 22 percent worse than average, and 96 is 4 percent better than average. The vehicles are listed within each group in ascending sequence results. For convenience, the overall results are color-coded to indicate better and worse than average. The results also are adjusted, or standardized, to reduce possible distortions from two nonvehicle factors — operator age (injury, collision, and theft results) and insurance deductible (collision and theft results only).

These insurance loss results generally are good predictors of the experience of current versions of the same vehicle models. But when automakers substantially redesign their passenger vehicles, the experience of an earlier model with the same name (but not same design) may not predict the experience of the newer design.