Car insurance myths: color, make, model year and horsepower

Most of the folk wisdom about cars and insurance is half right for the wrong reason. Color is not a rating factor, so a red car does not cost more because it is red. Brand matters only through the claims history of specific models, horsepower correlates with losses through price and repair cost more than through reckless driving, and a new car is not always the expensive one to insure. What insurers actually price is a short list of vehicle attributes, combined with a longer list about the driver and the address.

This article takes each popular claim in turn, says what the evidence supports, and ends with a way to check any claim yourself with a few quotes.

What insurers actually use from the vehicle

Before the myths, the baseline. Regulators and industry sources describe the same cluster of vehicle-related inputs:

• Price and replacement cost. The Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) says a car's cost is a major factor in the cost to insure it, along with the likelihood of theft, the cost of repairs, and engine size (Triple-I). New York's Department of Financial Services says higher-priced cars generally cost more to insure (NY DFS).
• Repairability and damage. Washington's insurance commissioner says the make, model and year of your car determine how expensive it would be to repair or replace, and that more technology in vehicles makes repairs more expensive and time-consuming (Washington OIC).
• Theft and safety record. New York's page adds that a car's rating reflects its strength and safety characteristics as well as its repairability and auto theft record.
• Loss history of the model. Insurance data vendors assign each vehicle a symbol that begins with the price new and is then adjusted by the claims experience of the model (as Verisk describes it). New York DFS notes that higher symbol numbers reflect greater claim cost and so higher premiums.

None of that is a personality test of the car's owner, and none of it mentions paint. Those inputs apply mainly to physical damage and, in adjusted form, to liability and injury coverages. The rest of your premium comes from the driver, the address, the mileage and the coverage choices. Our guide on how the car you drive affects your insurance rate walks through the mechanics.

Myth 1: red cars cost more to insure

Verdict: false. Triple-I lists "color determines the price of auto insurance" as the first of its auto insurance myths and says the color doesn't factor into your costs. It points instead to the make, model, body type, engine size and age of the vehicle, plus the sticker price, repair cost, overall safety record and likelihood of theft (Triple-I, 8 auto insurance myths).

Why does the belief persist? Some plausible reasons, none of them a rating rule:

• Memorable pairings. If a sporty model that is costly to insure is often seen in red, the two get linked in memory. The model is the factor, not the paint.
• Tickets. A speeding ticket can raise your rate, and people remember the red car that was pulled over. The ticket is the factor, not the paint.
• Paint can change the value of the car. A rare factory color or a custom finish can change what a car is worth, and the value feeds into physical damage coverage. That is the car's price and its repair cost showing up, not color as such.
• The word "color" appears in the law. Rating statutes forbid discrimination based on race, creed, color, ethnicity or national origin. The Texas Department of Insurance, for example, says rates must not be based on the insured's race, creed, color, ethnicity, or national origin (TDI). There, "color" refers to the person.

There is one practical caveat. A custom paint job, mural or wrap is a modification, not a factory color. It can raise the cost to repair or replace the car and may need to be disclosed or covered with a custom parts endorsement. See modified cars and insurance: lift kits, tuning, wraps and wheels and our guide on custom parts and equipment coverage.

Myth 2: insurers charge by brand

Verdict: mostly false, but easy to mistake for true. Insurers do not generally price a brand as such. What they do is price the model (and often the model year and trim) from its own loss history and its price new. When one maker's models share a design flaw or a common repair pattern, the shared history makes the whole group look expensive.

The clearest recent case was the theft wave involving certain Hyundai and Kia models. IIHS-HLDI reported in September 2022 that engine immobilizers were standard on 96% of other manufacturers' 2015 vehicles but only 26% of Hyundai and Kia models, and that theft claims were nearly twice as common for the two companies as a group (IIHS). The loss pattern was driven by specific model years and a specific ignition design, which is why insurers that restricted new policies named "certain model years and trim levels" rather than whole brands (Insurance Journal, February 2023). The brand name was a shorthand for a measurable defect, and the same makers' newer models, which come with immobilizers, are priced from their own record.

So a brand can be associated with higher or lower premiums, but the mechanism is the claims data of its vehicles, and it changes over time. A brand that sells mostly small, inexpensive, safe cars will show lower physical-damage costs than one that sells mostly high-priced performance models. A car from a company that went out of business is a different problem, covered in insuring orphan brands and discontinued models: parts and claims.

Myth 3: horsepower is what insurers care about

Verdict: partly true, for reasons other than horsepower. The research is old but clear on direction, and newer HLDI summaries reinforce the cost side of the story.

• In a 1991 report, HLDI studied 22 vehicle series from the 1988-90 model years that were offered with high-performance versions. Collision and theft losses were significantly higher for the high-performance models than for the standard ones, but injury claim frequencies were not higher (HLDI via TRID).
• An earlier HLDI study of eight 1983 two-door series found no consistent relationship between engine size and the frequency of injury or collision claims. Average payments per collision claim were substantially higher for cars with the more powerful engines (HLDI via TRID).
• IIHS-HLDI's current summary of insurance losses says sports cars have high collision claim severity because of their high prices, while their claim frequencies are lower than most vehicle classes, a pattern the page attributes to owners who have more vehicles than drivers. Large sports cars had the highest relative theft losses (IIHS).
• HLDI's December 2025 fact sheet on 2022-24 models found small sports cars had the highest collision severity of any class it measured, with four-door cars and luxury cars showing higher-than-average claim frequency (HLDI Loss Facts).

Put those together and you get a picture that contradicts the stereotype. A powerful car is expensive to fix and attractive to steal, so the dollars per claim are high. It does not follow that its drivers crash more often, and in the 1983 and current data, they do not. The Texas Department of Insurance says collision and comprehensive rates are highest for luxury, high-performance and sports cars, and that rates are higher for cars that cost more to repair (TDI). Cost to repair is the common thread.

The horsepower number is therefore a proxy. A 300-horsepower minivan is not priced like a 300-horsepower coupe, because the van sits in a different class with a different price and loss history. If you want the detail on how the trim ladder plays out, see trim, engine and drivetrain choices that change your insurance quote, and for the class-level comparison, Body style and insurance: sedans, SUVs, minivans and coupes.

Myth 4: a new car always costs the most to insure

Verdict: often true for physical damage, but not a rule. There are two separate effects, and they pull in different directions.

Value. Collision and comprehensive pay to repair or replace the car, up to its actual cash value, so a newer and more valuable car costs more to cover on those lines. That is why it can make sense to review whether to keep them as a car ages; see when to drop collision and comprehensive on an older car: the math. Liability coverage, on the other hand, protects other people and does not shrink as the car's value falls.

Equipment. Newer vehicles come with safety systems that change claim patterns. IIHS-HLDI's August 11, 2026 analysis compared otherwise identical 2017-22 vehicles with and without a bundle of driver-assistance features. Collision claim frequency was about 10% lower with the features, severity about 10% higher, and overall collision losses about 5% lower. For property damage liability, frequency was almost 40% lower and overall losses almost 30% lower (IIHS). A newer car with those systems can therefore be cheaper to insure for liability than an older one without them, even though its repairs cost more.

Add the model-year effect: a redesign can change a car's symbol. An older car may also lack features that reduce theft. The net result varies by model, insurer and coverage, so the only way to know is to price the specific cars. Our article on how a redesign changes a car's insurance rating group and your premium explains how a redesigned model can get a different rating.

Myth 5: the safest car is always the cheapest to insure

Verdict: often helpful, but not guaranteed. A good crash-test result reduces injury risk, and the insurer pays less in injury claims. But injury coverage is only one slice of the premium, and a safe car that is expensive to fix, popular with thieves or equipped with costly sensors can still carry a high physical-damage price. IIHS says injury claim rates for people in the insured vehicle tend to decrease as vehicle size increases (IIHS), but larger vehicles also tend to cost more to buy and repair. Safety helps; it is not the whole formula.

What matters more than the car

Vehicle attributes sit alongside driver and location factors, and for many households the driver side is bigger. Texas lists claims history, where you live and how much you drive, age, gender and marital status, occupation, the cost to replace the car, and credit score as common factors (TDI). Which of these an insurer may use differs by state. Several states restrict credit, gender or other factors, so a car-focused rule of thumb that works in one state can be wrong in another. For the driver-side details, see credit-based insurance scores and car insurance and Why your ZIP code changes your car insurance price; to check what your state allows, use the state car insurance requirements lookup and your state insurance department.

Even the loss-data researchers account for this. IIHS-HLDI says its make-and-model results are adjusted for operator age, calendar year, density, gender, marital status, model year, risk and state, so that the comparison reflects the vehicle rather than who happens to drive it (IIHS). An insurer's quote does not do that adjustment for you. It prices you in that car at that address.

How to test any claim with quotes

If someone tells you a car will be cheap or expensive to insure, you can check it in under an hour.

1. Pick two or three actual cars. Use real listings so you have trim, year and, ideally, VIN.
2. Hold everything else constant. Same drivers, same address, same limits, same deductibles, same mileage.
3. Get quotes from at least three insurers, because they weigh vehicle factors differently. The car insurance quote comparison worksheet keeps the numbers side by side.
4. Compare the physical-damage portions if the insurer itemizes them. That isolates the vehicle effect from the liability portion.
5. Run one control. Change only the paint color field (if the form has one) and see if the price moves. It should not.
6. Re-run at renewal. Symbols and rates change, so last year's ranking is not permanent.

Common questions

Does a car's color affect the chance of an accident or theft claim?

Insurers do not use it, and Triple-I says it does not factor into costs. Rate filings list the variables an insurer uses, and color is not among the vehicle factors that regulators and industry sources describe. If you want to be sure for one company, read the rating plan in its filing.

Are insurers allowed to charge more for a particular make?

Insurers can use vehicle characteristics that relate to the risk of loss, within the rules of each state. In practice they use model-level loss data rather than a flat brand surcharge. A state regulator's website or the insurer's rate filing is the place to confirm what a given company files; see How to read a car insurance rate filing on SERFF.

Is it cheaper to insure an older car that I own outright?

Often for collision and comprehensive, because the car is worth less, and you may choose to drop them. Liability stays. Compare the cost of coverage to the car's value before deciding. Our article on when to drop collision and comprehensive on an older car: the math gives a way to do that.

Why did my premium change when I changed cars even though the new one is cheaper?

The new car has its own symbol, theft record, safety equipment and repair cost, and it may also have changed how you are rated for mileage or garaging. A cheaper car is not always a lower-risk car in the insurer's data.

Key takeaways

• Paint color is not a rating factor; if a quote moves when only color changes, ask the insurer why.
• Brand matters through the loss history of specific models and years, not as a blanket surcharge.
• Performance trims cost more to insure mostly because each claim is bigger, not because claims are more frequent.
• A newer car raises the cost of collision and comprehensive but may lower claim frequency and liability losses through safety equipment.
• Test a claim by quoting the actual cars with the same drivers, address and limits across several insurers.