Car insurance calculator

With most insurers offering quick online quotes for car insurance these days, you don’t need to rely on a specific car insurance calculator to get an idea of what it would cost to insure your vehicle. You can simply get a car insurance quote online and that will tell you exactly how much it would cost to insure your vehicle.

As insurers are becoming increasingly digital, getting a quote to insure your vehicle doesn’t need to be a tedious process of multiple phone calls while you shuffle through various call centres. Many people just want a quick way to calculate what their car insurance may cost so they can get it sorted, and are unaware that getting an actual quote can take as little as 3 minutes.

How much is car insurance?

There is no one simple answer to this question as car insurance quotes are calculated based on a range of factors such as those mentioned further below. However if you are planning to purchase a car, it is common to get a quote just to get an indicative price you need to budget for.

As mentioned above, the easiest and most accurate way to know how much car insurance might cost for you is to get an actual quote. You’ll just need the registration plate of the car you want to insure. There isn’t a ‘rough car insurance calculator’ available that makes this process easier than it already is. If you are planning on buying a used car from any of New Zealand’s leading sites such as Trademe, Autotrader, or Turners, you can most likely copy down the number plate from the car photos or description, and use this to get a rough idea of what car insurance could cost you.

The only situation you are unable to do this for is when the car is unregistered (such as a fresh import), in which case the car won’t yet have a number plate. In this situation, you can just use the number plate of an identical make and model vehicle, which you can easily find by browsing the likes of Trademe.

Online car insurance calculator

In 2018 you are able to calculate what car insurance will cost in under 5 minutes from most insurers. With Cove, you can do this by visiting our car insurance page, then clicking to check our prices. These are the details you will typically need to provide:

1. Car Make & Model: A vehicle’s make and model are one of the key factors used by insurers when calculating the cost of car insurance for an individual. The make & model of a vehicle dictates how much a vehicle will cost to repair should it be involved in an accident, and also help to indicate what the likelihood of a vehicle being stolen is.
2. Year of Manufacture: As with the make & model of a vehicle, the age of the vehicle also plays a role in determining price.
3. Accessories & Modifications: If your car has any accessories or modifications, this could either increase your car insurance cost, or make the car ineligible for insurance from most of the mainstream insurers.
4. Financing: Some insurers take into account whether the vehicle was purchased on finance when calculating your car’s insurance cost. This may mean whether the vehicle has anything owing on it currently, or whether it was simply initially purchased on finance, and is now fully paid-off.
5. Vehicle use: A private vehicle is not used in connection with any business, and is simply used for personal or family transportation. Vehicles that are used for business may need specialist car insurance, or in less intensive cases such as using the vehicle for volunteer work, for the business purpose to simply be declared when purchasing the policy.
6. Address: Different cities and suburbs have different rating factors that affect the cost of insuring a vehicle in that particular area. This is why you will typically be asked to enter your address and postcode when getting a car insurance quote online.
7. Age: A person’s likelihood of being involved in a car crash varies in relation to their age. For this reason, people who are in an age bracket that are more likely to be involved in a motoring accident, can sometimes be subjected to paying a higher cost than others.

Additional reading

Our experts have written a number of guides on buying car insurance. Our most popular guide on buying cheap car insurance in New Zealand, is worth a read if this is your first time buying car insurance and need a quick overview of the different types of car insurance, what an excess is, and what you should do if you have an accident.

For people new to car insurance, or even those that have had car insurance previously, it can be a bit tough knowing how to compare policies. Price isn’t the only thing you should take into account. You also need to look at the level of cover you are getting, and which company has the optional extras that you want. If this sounds like you, our cheap car insurance article also has a section on how to compare car insurance.