Motor insurance cheapest in Aragón and most expensive in Andalucía: Comparison of premiums by province and region

IF YOUR car insurance is too expensive, you probably live in the Andalucia provinces of Sevilla or Cádiz or the Galicia province of Pontevedra – and in which case, you might consider a move to the north-eastern region of Aragón, where your premium will, statistically, be the lowest in Spain.

This is according to a study carried out by the insurance comparison site Arpem.com, which shows that fully-comprehensive cover is the most costly in Andalucía and the most expensive third-party-only policies are found in Cantabria.

The figures are based upon a typical driver aged 33 who owns a Seat León Reference 1.6 TDI and 110 horse-power, parked in a garage rather than on-road, with a 10-year claim-free insurance history.

If this driver lived in Pontevedra, the premium would come out at a typical €439 a year for third-party cover - €229 more than the same policy for the same driver if he or she lived in the southern-Aragón province of Teruel, where motor insurance is the cheapest in the whole of Spain.

Here, third-party-only motor cover comes in at just €210 a year, or €80 lower than the national average of €290 for this type of policy.

If you are not bothered about insuring your car for fire, theft or accidental or malicious damage, below-average premiums for liability to other road users – compulsory in most countries, including Spain – can be found in the Pyrénéen province of Huesca, also in Aragón, at €225, or in Soria, Segovia, Ávila (Castilla y León) and Cáceres (Extremadura), in ascending order, all of which range from €227 to €229.

But if your third-party-only cover is above average, you probably live in the province of Cádiz (€392), the northern coastal region of Cantabria (€385), the south-eastern region of Murcia (€384), the Canary Island province of Las Palmas (€368), or the Andalucía province in Spain's far south-east corner, Almería (€359).

By regions, you can get below-average third-party cover in Navarra (€280), the Balearics (€282), Catalunya (€265), Aragón (€222), Castilla y León (€254), Madrid – surprisingly, as it is home to the country's capital (€250), Extremadura (€240), Castilla-La Mancha (€240), or Valencia (€265).

But if your decision upon where to live is influenced by the cost of third-party motor insurance, avoid Murcia (€384), Andalucía €317), the Canary Islands (€320), the Basque Country (€299), Galicia (€341), Asturias €348) and the most-pricey of all, Cantabria at €385.

And reducing your premium by increasing your excess is not possible, since third-party liability claims are not subject to any kind of deductible: the insurance company pays the entire claim if this is accepted.

 

What about fully-comp?

For our 33-year-old driver of a Seat León with 10 years' claims-free, the average annual premium payable is €853 and the lowest, found in the Castilla y León province of Segovia, is €719.

Fully-comprehensive motor insurance typically comes with a compulsory excess ranging from €50 to €250 depending upon the insurer, but which can sometimes be increased or decreased in exchange for a higher or lower premium upon request.

Unusually, however, some Spanish insurers do offer excess-free fully-comp cover, meaning even a scratch on the bodywork costing €25 to fix would be acceptable as a claim – although ill-advised, since a history of claims can increase the following year's premium even if the company does not offer a no-claims discount scheme.

Ávila is the second-cheapest for fully-comp cover at €737, followed by Huesca at €745, the Castilla-La Mancha province of Toledo at €748, the central-Aragón province of Zaragoza at €749, and Albacete in south-eastern Castilla-La Mancha at €751.

But if you live in Cádiz, Sevilla or Málaga, you can expect to pay between €955 on the Costa del Sol and €1,061in the first of these provinces.

Cádiz's western neighbour, Huelva, which borders Portugal, comes in at an average of €954 per year – the same as Pontevedra, in Galicia – and fully-comp insurance in Cantabria will set you back €943 on average per annum.

By regions, the cheapest are those in the central part of the mainland – the cheapest being Aragón at €754 per annum and the second-cheapest, surprisingly, being Madrid at an average of €777 a year,

Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura come in at €787 and Castilla y León and the Canary Islands at €797.

Also below average are La Rioja (€811), Catalunya (€838) and Valencia (€844).

Galicia (€910), Cantabria (€943), and Murcia (€928) are also among the highest, but still lower than Andalucía at €954.

Other regions with above-average annual premiums are the Balearic Islands (€886), Asturias (€868), Navarra (€864), and the Basque Country (€889).