There’s no doubt that size matters when it comes to your insurance rate – but determining which is more likely to get you cheap car insurance is up for debate.

The answer really depends on what SUV you’re looking at in comparison to your small car choice. Before I go off on a rant about all the different variables that factor into figuring out insurance rates – I’m going to tell you the best way to get the RIGHT answer for you.

Cheap Car Insurance: Shop your Choices

• Get the make and model of the SUV and smaller cars you’re looking to buy (or better yet, VIN #’s if you’ve come that close to the cars.)
• Get at least 3 or 4 online quotes for each one.

Important: The key to getting accurate and safe online auto insurance quotes is to do it through a site that shops around to all the major insurance companies for you – not just the few they’re contracted with. If in doubt, I know insurancerates.com is unbiased and will get you quotes from all the companies in one shot.

Sizeable Debate

If you’ve landed on this article, it’s likely that you’ve been running into all sorts of online opinions about SUV’s vs. Small cars and which is cheaper to insure.

What side of the fence you wind up on is based on the factors that come into figuring out your insurance rate.
Bottom Line: Auto insurance rates are based on the likelihood that you’ll file a car insurance claim, and how much the claim may cost.

However lots of different things go into that kind of future foretelling – and it doesn’t involve a crystal ball, it’s about statistics.

• Which is likely to cause more damage?
• Which is likely to suffer more damage?
• Which is likely to keep passengers safer?
• Which is likely to injure passengers in another vehicle or pedestrians?
• Which is more likely to cost more to repair?
• Which is more likely to get stolen?

Trusted industry sources across the internet like insweb.com warn against assumptions that bigger is safer.

Insweb cites higher bumpers, likelihood of extensive damage to another vehicle and rollovers as reasons that “you can expect to pay an additional 10-20% for insuring an SUV”
(http://www.insweb.com/insurance/auto_insurance/suv_rates_auto_insurance.htm.)

However, according to the Wall Street Journal “Small cars generally cost more to insure than larger ones because they're involved in more accidents and incur bigger claims, especially for injuries. That's true regardless of the driver profile, though younger and less-experienced drivers tend to buy smaller, cheaper cars.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122471188978360023.html)

Depending on Which way you’re Looking at it, Both are Right.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of more questions (and answers) that insurance companies will consider when coming up with the insurance rates for an SUV vs. Small Car.
We can sit here and generalize till’ the cows come home considering the choices out there in both categories. Pinning up a 2008 SUV against a 2003 small car will get you very different results than a shiny new compact against an old SUV.

But why waste your time trying to GUESS what will be cheaper to insure?

Skip the Stats

Looking for cheap car insurance and getting quotes is not just the only way to get the right answer – it’s also a LOT quicker and hassle free. Leave the debating to the experts looking for fodder to fret over and get yourself the best answer for YOU.