Are garages on the way out? According to recent research from Santander, more than one in ten homeowners has converted their garage or has plans to do so.
But while an extra bedroom or study can add thousands of pounds to the value of a home, one thing you may not have considered is the impact it could have on your car insurance.
Conventional wisdom would dictate that owning a garage would cut the cost of your insurance. It makes sense; keep your car behind a locked door at night, the time at which the majority of vehicle thefts take place, and insurers are surely likely to look upon you favourably.
Well, apparently not always. When I ran quotes through Confused.com, I was surprised to find that I was charged almost 3 per cent more on my average premium when I stated that my car was parked in a garage overnight. This amounts to around £40 a year extra for a 22 year-old second year driver such as myself.
So what’s the deal?
Assuming there was some kind of error, I spoke to Confused.com’s head of motor insurance, Will Thomas.
“In most cases parking your car in the garage can reduce your premium,” he explains. “However, in rare circumstances you may find that it has the opposite effect”.
Thomas adds: “Every insurer rates differently and it’s difficult to say for certain why this happens, however it might be because the risk of your car being stolen while parked on the street or driveway is lower than the risk of an accident while parking in the garage every night.”
According to the latest Home Office statistics, the average Brit has a 6.4 per cent chance of suffering a vehicle-related theft in their lifetime. Tally that up against the much greater likelihood of scratching your car when reversing into the garage, for example, and you’ll begin to see why insurers might prefer you to keep your car outside.
A note of caution
However, my experience should not be taken as hard and fast rule. The price of your policy is affected by a mixture of different factors. For example, I’m a relatively young male driver, with relatively little experience behind the wheel.
The weight of these factors in insurers’ thinking is rightly high – young male drivers, statistically speaking, suffer the most accidents. As it happens, this has so much bearing that I’m apparently more likely to suffer an accident parking my car than I am to have it stolen from my street - that’s even after considering the fact that my area of Cardiff suffers disproportionately from car crime compared to the rest of Wales. Hardly a vote of confidence for my driving skills, but that’s how insurance works.
As a result, it could well be that an older, more experienced driver in a different area would get very different findings. In any case, make sure you compare car insurance with us before you rush to convert that garage.
