Do Electric Vehicles Really Cost More To Insure?

We dive in with insurance expert Matt Escobar to talk about EVs and insurance.

By: Zack Hurst

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Electric vehicles are becoming more mainstream and, while the total cost of ownership is significantly lower, there is still some confusion about if the insurance costs are higher or not. Depending on HOW we compare vehicles determines what answer we get to this question.

 Comparing insurance costs

If you're like us and read a lot of internet articles, you will likely have seen this question with statistics comparing many models gas versions against their electric versions and the answer returned is that EVs can cost more than 20% more for insurance than their gas counterparts... and this is true, sometimes. However, it likely depends on many factors and isn't as easy as a straight comparison. We asked an insurance expert, Matt Escobar, to compare a few different models for us and found that in fact there was very little difference between the insurance premiums, especially when comparing cars that were of similar value. While we can't say that insurance costs are never going to be higher for you, we can say that they aren't always higher, and in some cases may turn out to be almost the same.

Insurance companies don't care if a vehicle is powered by a gas engine or an electric motor. They care about what it would cost to repair or replace, and if the vehicles are similar in this aspect, so is the cost of insurance.

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