Ten Of The Cheapest New Cars To Insure RIGHT NOW

Finding affordable car insurance is a minefield. Insurance companies insist they work to a transparent and logical set of metrics, their systems calculating an applicant’s risk level with no scope for random guesswork or wanton spitefulness.

But if you’ve ever shopped for insurance, you’ll know it doesn’t seem to work like that. Generally, trying to get insured is a bit more of a lottery. (Come to think of it, more of an inverse lottery, where the surprise comes from having a large amount of money extracted from your bank account rather than deposited in it.)

Phone up any given insurance company one day, you’ll get an eye-watering, impossibly high quote. Phone back a couple of days later, while affecting a different accent and wearing a fake moustache, and you might end up with an inexplicably lower figure. Or, more likely, an inexplicably even-higher figure.

So far as Top Gear can ascertain, the only route to a genuinely affordable insurance quote is to miraculously transform yourself into a 55-year-old lady from Herefordshire with a couple of decades’ no-claims bonus. (If you’re reading this and you’re already a 55-year-old lady from Herefordshire, top work and hope you’re enjoying your £10-a-year cover.)

But if you’re not a 55-year-old lady from Herefordshire, the following list of new cars represents your best chance of affordable insurance, all residing in the lowest two insurance groups. If you can’t get insured on these, you’re not getting insured on anything...

The old Nissan Micra was perhaps the ultimate ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’ car. A machine purchased for the one-way drive to Dignitas. The new one is much better.

For a start, the exterior’s been designed with… well, it’s been designed. And the cabin doesn’t come pre-impregnated with the scent of Werthers Originals and despair.

If you’re after the most insurable Micra, you’ll need to go for the non-turbo 69bhp one-litre engine, which is a shame because (a) the three-cylinder turbo petrol is a much nicer unit, and (b) the non-turbo is so slow you’ll have to set off several days in advance to reach any given appointment on time.

If you have fond memories of whanging around in the original Ford Ka from the Nineties – though let’s be honest, if you’re shopping around for insurable cars, you’re unlikely to have fond memories of anything from the Nineties, as you probably weren’t born – think again.

The Ka+ is not a zingy, peppy, urban runabout. It is functional, urban transportation, with a deal more space inside than you get from a VW Up or its ilk. It’s got all the raunchy glamour of a parish council meeting. But you know what? Parish council meetings have their place. As does the Ka+. Just not, ideally, on our driveway.

As sophisticated as highly-insurable motoring gets. The Polo is as reliable and sturdily-built as a nuclear fall-out shelter, and as packed with as many unexpected, cheery surprises as a nuclear fall-out shelter.

Basically it’s a mini-Golf. By which we mean a slightly shrunken version of VW’s ubiquitous C-segment hatchback, not a budget seaside attraction with a tiny windmill and a creepy, open-mouthed clown rendered in concrete.

VW has somehow made the latest Polo more spacious than before, without making it any heavier. Air’s light stuff, we suppose. Should you desire, you can spec it with all sorts of clever toys. But if you’re trying to pinch the pennies on insurance, we’re guessing you can do without a heated clutch pedal and automatic fuel filler cap.

There’s a lot to like about the VW Up. It’s perhaps the cleanest and most sophisticated-looking of the dinky city cars on sale right now, it’s surprisingly refined on the motorway, and it’s roomier inside than you might expect given its stunted footprint.

Unfortunately VW has done its very best to destroy all this good work by saddling the poor Up with a panoply of tooth-grindingly pun-tastic names, replete with exclamation marks: the Move Up!, the High Up!, and the Yorkshire-tastic e-Up!

Luckily, to qualify for Group 1 insurance, you’ll have to opt for the marginally less painfully titled Take Up!, with the 60bhp one-litre engine.

The Logan is the cheapest new estate you can buy in the UK right now, starting at a faintly ludicrous £8,495. On an interior-space-to-cost ratio, there’s no car on the market that can match it. In fact, we’re pretty sure there’s no Argos garden shed that can match it.

OK, so the Logan is about as cool as ringworm, and you’re saddled with the one-litre, 75 horsepower engine, but just think how much stuff you’ll be able to transport across the country, very slowly!

And no, we can’t explain why the Logan qualifies for cheaper insurance than the smaller, non-estate Sandero. Maybe it’s the Sandero’s wild-child, boy-racer image?

The Citigo is first cousin of the excellent VW Up. Actually, that’s not quite true. It’s the identical twin of the excellent VW Up, with its hair parted on the other side in a bid to look a bit different.

On the plus side, you can have it in a rather frisky shade of green not available on the Up. On the downside, it doesn’t have the Up’s natty glass tailgate. Call it swings and roundabouts… which, incidentally, both offer more high-speed thrills than the base-spec, 60 horsepower Citigo. Decent car, though.

‘Picanto’, of course, means ‘spicy’ in Spanish. The Kia Picanto 1.0 ‘1’ is not spicy. Nor Spanish. It is, however, a very competent little city car that’s far less dowdy than most other offerings in its sector.

The interior’s interesting – interesting, that is, by the standards of budget city cars, which is to say not especially interesting in the grand scheme of interesting things.

Take a corner at pace and you’ll discover the handling’s reasonably keen, but given you’re stuck with the 66bhp base-spec engine, it’d better be a downhill corner.

Kia also proudly notes the Picanto has one of the best turning circles in its class, which should come in handy if your allocated parking space happens to be at the top of a spiral staircase.

It’s fair to say the old Hyundai i10 wasn’t the most exciting car on the road. Hyundai somehow shifted more than a million of them since 2007 without anyone really noticing, including most of the customers who actually bought one.

The new i10 is much less amnesia-inducing. Not fast, mind – at least not with the insurer-pleasing one-litre engine – and not exactly exciting to drive. But it’s refined enough on the move, comes with more kit than you’d expect from an entry-level city car (i.e. some kit), and of course gets Hyundai’s stonking warranty.

Wow. Insurance groups and warranty chat in the same article. How we treat you.

Following the Up and the Citigo, it’s the final VW Group micro-triplet! Full house!

No, we can’t explain why the Mii resides in a marginally higher category than its all-but-identical Volkswagen-badged sibling. No, we can’t think of any particular reason why you should choose it over the Skoda or VW, or indeed vice versa. No, we’re definitely not running out of enthusiasm for cheap-to-insure runabouts having got 1000 words into this article. Perish the thought.

Eh, forget the rest of the list. Look at this! A Fiesta – no question the best-handling supermini on the market right now – sneaking into the second-lowest category! Strike the Logans and the Micras from your shopping list, this is the one you want.

OK, so it’s a Fiesta with slightly less power than a home milk frother, so your opportunities to enjoy its lithe handling will mostly be limited to ‘unexpected and massive brake failure while descending a mountain pass’, but still. A Fiesta! Group 2! What a time to be alive!

Sure, it might pack an 800bhp twin-turbo V12 and cost nearly three million quid, but shop around and you’ll discover the jaw-dropping Huayra Roadster BC is actually surprisingly affordable to ins—nah, just kidding. Unless you’re (a) two hundred years old and (b) a nun, the BC will cost you another three million quid to insure.

That said, unless you’re (a) two hundred years old and (b) a nun, a 15-year-old Golf GTI will cost you three million quid to insure, so if you’re going to miss, why not miss big?