Electric Car Owners Pay £46 More a Year to Insure, MoneySuperMarket Reveals

Electric cars now cost £557 a year to insure on average, £46 more than the £511 typical for a petrol car, according to MoneySuperMarket’s Electric Car Insurance Index.

The most expensive electric car to insure, the Jaguar I-Pace 400 SE, costs £921.59 a year, more than double the cheapest, the Renault R5 at £417.64.

Diesel cars sit in between at £537 a year, meaning the fuel type of a car alone can swing a premium by £46 before a single other factor is taken into account.

Buying an electric car is meant to cut running costs, but insurance is one bill that still runs the other way. MoneySuperMarket’s latest Electric Car Insurance Index, published on 11 September 2026 and built from policies sold through the site between May and July 2026, puts the median annual premium for an electric car at £557. A petrol car costs £511 to insure over the same period, putting a flat £46 premium on choosing to drive electric, before a driver’s age, postcode or claims history come into it at all.

Diesel sits closer to electric than petrol does, at £537 a year, a £20 gap to electric rather than £46. That narrower difference points to what insurers say is really driving the premium: not the electric powertrain on its own, but the cost and complexity of fixing one after a crash.

The three figures also show how much ground electric insurance has to make up before it reaches price parity with the fuels it is meant to replace. Petrol remains the cheapest of the three to insure by a clear margin, diesel sits in the middle, and electric carries the highest average premium of any mainstream fuel type on the road today, even as electric cars themselves make up a growing share of new car sales.

Why One Cracked Panel Costs So Much More on an Electric Car

The gap comes down to repair bills rather than risk of an accident happening in the first place. Electric cars carry battery packs, high-voltage wiring and sensor-heavy driver assistance systems that sit behind body panels, meaning even minor collision damage can trigger checks a petrol car would never need. Parts are pricier too, and fewer garages are trained and equipped to work on high-voltage systems safely, which narrows where a claim can be repaired and pushes labour costs up.

The model-by-model figures show how far that spread can stretch. Sitting at the top of MoneySuperMarket’s table, the Jaguar I-Pace 400 SE costs £921.59 a year to insure, with the Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD close behind at £895.76 and the Model Y Standard Range at £878.14. Further down the list, the Mercedes-Benz EQC 400, two more Tesla Model 3 variants, the BYD Seal and the Audi E-Tron Quattro all sit above £800 a year.

Smaller, cheaper electric cars tell a different story entirely. The Renault R5 tops the cheapest table at £417.64 a year, with the Mini Cooper S Level 2 at £445.58 and the Volkswagen ID 3 Life 204 at £477.81 close behind. The Nissan Leaf, in both Tekna and E+ Tekna trim, sits under £520 a year. The pattern is consistent: smaller batteries, lower kerb mass and cheaper parts bills keep premiums down, while premium-badged and larger-battery electric cars carry the sharpest mark-up over an equivalent petrol model.

A Bill That Falls Hardest on New EV Buyers

Anyone switching to electric for the first time is the least likely to know their car sits in a higher insurance group before they buy. A buyer comparing sticker prices and running-cost calculators can easily miss that the same budget spent on a Jaguar I-Pace rather than a Renault R5 or a Nissan Leaf carries a difference of more than £500 a year in insurance alone, on top of the price of the car itself.

Company car drivers and fleet buyers face a version of the same problem at scale. A business ordering a batch of premium electric SUVs on the promise of lower running costs could find the insurance line item alone erases a meaningful part of the fuel and tax savings it was expecting, if nobody checks the insurance group before the order goes in.

The £46 gap also sits alongside other costs that have already made electric ownership less predictable this year. Used electric car values have fallen sharply on the resale market, and public charging remains far more expensive per mile than charging at home overnight. None of those figures cancel each other out, but taken together they show why the running-cost case for going electric depends heavily on which model a buyer chooses, not on the fuel type alone. A small, well-priced electric car can still cost less to run than a comparable petrol model. A large, premium one, bought without checking the insurance group first, can end up costing considerably more across fuel, depreciation and cover combined.

Can You Avoid the £46 Premium?

You cannot change the underlying repair costs that drive electric car premiums up, but you can reduce how much of that gap lands on you.

Check the insurance group before you buy, not after. MoneySuperMarket’s own car insurance group checker tool lets you look up a specific model before signing anything. As the index shows, staying within a smaller, lower-powered electric model such as the Renault R5, Mini Cooper S or Volkswagen ID 3 can keep a premium close to, or even below, a comparable petrol car.

Ask about battery and charging equipment cover separately. Some insurers bundle cover for the battery, the charging cable and a home wallbox into the main policy, while others charge extra for each. Comparing what is included, rather than only the headline premium, avoids a nasty surprise if a cable is stolen or a wallbox is damaged.

Use a specialist or EV-experienced insurer where you can. Insurers with more electric vehicle claims experience have wider access to trained repair networks, which can bring both repair times and premiums down over time as the sector expands.

Raise your voluntary excess if your budget allows it. Much of the electric car premium reflects the cost of a single repair claim rather than the chance of a crash happening at all, so a higher voluntary excess can meaningfully reduce the annual premium on higher-value electric models.

A telematics or black box policy is worth a look, above all for a new or young driver moving into their first electric car. Insurers price these policies on demonstrated driving behaviour rather than on the vehicle’s repair profile alone, which can offset some of the model-based premium for a careful driver.

Park off-street overnight where you have the option. Insurers factor overnight parking location into every quote, and a car that charges on a private driveway rather than on a public street overnight is both less exposed to theft and cheaper to cover in most postcodes, on top of any other savings.

Compare renewal against a fresh quote every year rather than letting a policy roll over automatically. The electric vehicle insurance market is still repricing quickly as claims data builds up, so a premium set a year ago on an older repair-cost model can be well out of step with what a model now costs to insure, in either direction.

Read the excess and repair-network terms line by line before buying a policy on price alone. Two quotes that look identical on the headline annual figure can differ sharply on which garages a claim can go to and how quickly a written-off battery pack is replaced, and those differences only become visible after a claim has already been made.

None of these steps will close the full £46 gap for every model, but choosing carefully before you buy, rather than after the policy renewal lands, is where most of that gap can be recovered.

Sources

MoneySuperMarket, “The Electric Car Insurance Index,” published 11 September 2026, data drawn from policies sold between May and July 2026 (fuel-type comparison) and January to May 2026 (model-by-model comparison).