Unseen small-car pitfall: higher insurance rates

By G CHAMBERS WILLIAMS III

By G. Chambers Williams III

San Antonio Express-News

A study released recently by the auto insurance consumer Web site insure.com shows that the difference between insurance premium for a large pickup truck or SUV versus a small car can be large sufficiency to help pay the extra cost of gasolene for that bigger vehicle, even with fuel above the $3.50 mark.

"Small cars tend to addition insurance costs because they get into more crashes," said Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for main road Safety.

comparison the powder compact, fuel-efficient Honda Civic to the Ford F- series pickup, which the Honda replaced as the nation's best- merchandising vehicle. The norm national insurance premium to insure an F-series pickup is $1,194, compared with $1,670 for the Civic, the study showed.

Even the popular Toyota Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, with the best fuel-economy ratings of any new car on the marketplace at 48 miles per gal in the city and 45 on the main road, costs more to insure than the F-series pickup: an norm of $1,382 a year.

Originally published by BY G. CHAMBERS WILLIAMS III.

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