Automatic cars are £100 more expensive to insure

Drivers of cars with automatic gearboxes are paying almost £100 more for their insurance than owners of manual vehicles.

A study of more than 15 million insurance quotes found that automatic drivers pay an average of £94.07 more than manual drivers and the gap has widened over the last two years.

The data from MoneySuperMarket shows that an average policy for an automatic car is £560 compared to £466 for manual drivers a 20 per cent mark-up between transmissions.

The data, covering the period from January 2018 to February 2020, also shows that the gap has widened from around five per cent in early 2018. Automatic drivers now pay an average of £560 compared to £466 for manual drivers.

Rising popularity

Despite being more expensive to insure, enquiries for automatic cars have risen steadily over the last two years from 22 per cent to 28 per cent of all enquiries.

The reasons for automatic cars being more expensive to insure are complex and could relate to everything from them generally being fitted to larger, more expensive cars to the added complexity of the systems and costs associated with repairing them.