Car insurance: Chinese electric cars can be expensive to insure

Dusseldorf. According to an analysis by the Verivox portal, Chinese electric cars are almost twice as expensive for fully comprehensive insurance as new cars from Europe, the USA, Japan and Korea. The main reason is that insurers classify cars from the People's Republic into higher type classes on average, as the comparison portal Verivox announced. However, the ratings of Chinese brands are gradually improving.

Verivox compared the insurance costs of Chinese electric cars with similar vehicles from Europe and East Asia. Depending on the model, the annual insurance costs are up to 870 euros higher than those of a comparable vehicle from Europe or the rest of Asia. In addition to the legally required liability, fully comprehensive policies also cover damage to your own car.

In all cases, the insurance costs were calculated for a hypothetical 45-year-old Berliner with no-claims class 15 and 12,000 kilometers driven per year. In mid-life, car policies are significantly cheaper than for very young and old drivers because the latter cause, on average, more damage than people in their mid-forties.

According to Verivox, one reason for the higher classification of Chinese cars is the insurers' lack of experience with the frequency of claims. “With new models, the risk of damage and repair costs can often only be estimated and they are classified into higher type classes as a precautionary measure,” said Aljoscha Ziller, managing director of Verivox Versicherungsvergleich.

Many Chinese car manufacturers have only been on the German market for a few years. “As a result, insurers also lack experience with the producers themselves as well as spare part costs and availability.”

The Allianz Center for Technology, one of the established addresses for German accident and vehicle safety research, recently dealt with the topic. According to this, Chinese cars have improved by 1.5 model classes since 2024, while European manufacturers have become 0.5 classes worse. According to Verivox, individual models from Chinese brands are already cheaper to insure than comparable counterparts from established manufacturers.