Expensive repairs
With more and more cars on the road with modern safety systems, you might expect auto insurance premiums to come down. Yet that does not happen. One of the reasons: if there is damage, the repair costs are often higher precisely because of those systems.
Modern safety systems such as Autonomous Emergency Braking and Lane Departure Warning have undoubtedly managed to prevent the necessary accidents. More and more cars have the latest ADAS systems on board to absorb any errors made by the driver. With these developments, you might expect car insurance premiums to drop. Or that they can at least be lowered for cars with such systems. However, this is not the case in practice, even though according to Menno Dijcks, car insurance expert at comparison site Independer, the number of claims is decreasing due to these systems.
“It is indeed true that the number of claims for damages is also falling in the Netherlands due to these new techniques,” said Dijcks in conversation with AD.nl. “But repairing damage to cars with this modern technology is a lot more expensive. The result is that the amount per claim rises, so that the total amount that insurers have to pay out in a year does not really change, or even increases.” Because the sensors are usually on the outside of the car, they are damaged quite easily, even in the event of a minor collision, then it will soon cost you a lot of money.
Replacing a ‘stupid’ bumper costs a few hundred euros in most cases. For a ‘smart’ bumper, with built-in sensors, that amount quickly exceeds €1,000. Windshield repairs are often also considerably more expensive when it comes to more than damage to the glass. Many car windows have built-in sensors or cameras that measure distance, rain and daylight. Even if those systems don’t necessarily need to be replaced, they may need to be readjusted after windshield damage. If they measure incorrectly, the car can intervene at unfortunate moments and cause more damage than prevented. Such a ‘recalibration’ of a driver assistance system costs around €200 on average. Although cars with modern ADAS systems are therefore less likely to have or cause damage, the costs generally cancel out that advantage.
Auto insurance premiums are even rising
At the end of 2022, it was already warned that car insurance will become even more expensive on average in 2023. In addition to inflation adjustment, this was attributed to increased repair costs. There are also insurers who actually saw the number of claims increase.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl