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).
