Cheapest family cars to insure 2024
Family life is expensive enough without having worry about the cost of car insurance. Why spend your household budget on insurance when you can use it for a weekend away with the family or that new games console your kids have been going on about?
Granted, searching for cheap car insurance is less enjoyable than whiling away a few hours on a PlayStation, but you can take a shortcut by buying a family car that's cheap to insure. Many of the family hatchbacks and SUVs on our list cost less to insure than some small cars, so your teenage children will thank you for not subjecting them to rear seats that would make a pygmy marmoset complain about the legroom.
Although the cost of insurance is based on a number of factors, you can get a good idea of the likely premium by looking at the group ratings. All cars have one, from 1 to 50, and the lower the number, the less you're likely to spend.
Every car on our list of cheap family cars to insure have at least one version that slips into a low group rating, ranging from 8 to 13.
Cheapest family cars to insure
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Kia Stonic
The Kia Stonic is ideal if you've got a couple of small children and you spend most of the time ferrying them to school or into town. It's based on the Kia Rio, but it offers a little more practicality, a good level of standard equipment and the reassurance of Kia's seven-year warranty. Thanks to a range of punchy and efficient petrol engines, it should be cheap to run, helped in no small part by the likely cheap insurance. A couple of versions boast a lowly group 8 insurance rating, while the others range from 9 to 11.
Dacia Duster
The Dacia Duster is the cheapest family car you can buy. Prices start from £17,000, which is around £5000 cheaper than a comparable family hatchback. For this, you get a neat crossover SUV with the high-up seating position so beloved of many drivers. There’s also plenty of space inside to accommodate all the stuff that comes with family life. Don't be fooled into thinking that the entry-level Essential trim will be the cheapest to insure. Thanks to the additional safety equipment, the mid-range Expression trim slots into group 11, two groups lower than the Essential model. With a group 15 insurance rating, even the Extreme 4x4 will be cheap to insure.
Hyundai i30
The Hyundai i30 is very competitive in terms of car insurance, with the 1.0-litre T-GDI 120 version boasting a group 10 insurance rating. For a roomy family hatch with a punchy 120PS petrol engine, this is impressive. Even the entry-level SE Connect grade comes with a decent amount of standard equipment – plus, of course, Hyundai’s five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty. The latest i30 has smart LED headlights and a classy-looking front grille, for an upmarket appearance. If you prefer an automatic gearbox, the dual-clutch DCT version also falls into the same group 10 insurance band.
Skoda Kamiq
While the Dacia Duster is a great value-for-money SUV, the Skoda Kamiq has a touch more class and sophistication to it, but if you go for the right model you’ll still save on insurance. The entry-level SE trim, with a 1.0-litre, 95PS engine, sits in insurance group 10. It’s the icing on a brilliant family car cake, maximising space in a small package, keeping everyone comfortable and providing excellent value for money all round.
Skoda Scala
The Scala is another great value family car from Skoda. Size-wise, it fits in between the smaller Fabia and larger Octavia. Its neat and inoffensive lines hide a hard-wearing interior with plenty of space in the front and rear, plus a really commodious boot. With the seats up, it offers 467 litres of luggage space; fold them down and this extends to more than 1400 litres. A super-refined 1.0-litre TSI petrol engine is available in several different power outputs. Pick the entry-level 95PS version and car insurance as low as group 11 will be yours. Just be aware that if you choose the more powerful 110PS version, insurance jumps up one band to group 12.
Skoda Octavia
Yes, it’s another Skoda – a company that’s really rather good at making cars with cheap insurance. Despite sitting in the same class as the Ford Focus and Vauxhall Astra, the Octavia offers interior capacity to match cars in a class above, and is excellent value for money before you factor in insurance. Go for an SE model with the 1.0-litre 115PS engine (and a manual gearbox), and you’ll get a car that sits in insurance group 13. That’s for either the capacious Hatch model or the positively cavernous Estate, which might just be the quintessential family wagon.
Ford Focus
The Focus is a family favourite five-door hatchback. Ford knows how to make cars that are affordable to run, something that extends to annual car insurance premiums for the roomy Focus. In 1.0-litre EcoBoost 125 Titanium guise, it has a group 13 insurance rating, and is available with an automatic gearbox that facilitates further fuel saving via a mild-hybrid system. A power output of 125PS is more than adequate, while even entry-level Titanium grade has a good array of features. These include a Ford Sync infotainment system with an 13.2-inch touchscreen, plus 17-inch five-spoke alloy wheels and a heated windscreen.
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Citroen C4
Citroen’s five-door family car is a hatchback that has been infused with a little crossover verve. It rides a bit higher than a regular car, and features the tough body cladding we associate with SUVs. It doesn’t have an SUV’s price tag or running costs, though – which is how the 1.2-litre turbo petrol version in Sense trim manages a lowly group 13 insurance rating. Citroen also offers a pure electric model, called the e-C4, but this is rather more expensive to insure. Most families will find the 1.2-litre C4 a perfect all-rounder, and one that comes with a reassuring four-star Euro NCAP safety score.
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Hyundai Tucson
While it's possible to find family hatchbacks and small SUVs with lower insurance group ratings, you'll struggle to find a family SUV that's cheaper to insure than the Hyundai Tucson. If you opt for the standard 1.6 T-GDi petrol engine in SE Connect or Premium trim, the group ratings are just 12 and 13 respectively. Even if you upgrade to the mild-hybrid version, the ratings jump just a couple of groups to 14 and 15. Just avoid the four-wheel drive version, because that will cost significantly more to insure. Bold styling, a long list of standard equipment, low running costs and a five-year warranty are the highlights of this excellent SUV.
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Nissan Qashqai
Like the Hyundai Tucson, the Nissan Qashqai offers the practicality and convenience of a family SUV but with the running costs of a small hatchback. For the cheapest insurance, opt for the 1.3 DiG-T 140PS petrol engine, with the entry-level Visia trim slotting into group 11. Better still, upgrade to the Acenta Premium (group 12) or Tekna (group 13), as having more equipment is preferable to saving a few quid on insurance. As an all-rounder, the Qashqai is hard to beat.
Which is cheaper to insure – a car or an SUV?
SUVs generally cost more to insure than regular family hatchbacks. They are more desirable to car thieves, generally cost that bit more to buy, and they can also be pricier to repair – all factors that weigh on a car insurance premium. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, though, proven here by the Dacia Duster and Skoda Kamiq being some of the cheapest cars to insure.
Which is the cheapest family car to run?
Fuel is the biggest everyday motoring cost you will face. So to keep running costs in check, it’s worth picking a more economical car. In previous years, this used to mean choosing a diesel, but the latest turbocharged petrol engines have narrowed the gap – and they are cheaper to buy. Mild-hybrid tech is a bit more economical still, while full hybrids such as the Hyundai Tucson really do deliver significant real-world economy gains, particularly if you mainly drive in town.
Which is the cheapest car to insure?
We’ve listed the cheapest family cars to insure here, but which are the cheapest cars of all to insure? You need to look for ultra-low group 1 and group 2 insurance ratings, which is where vehicles such as the Volkswagen Polo, Volkswagen Up and Skoda Fabia come in. The Ford Fiesta and Renault Clio are also cheap to insure in entry-level guise, as is the Hyundai i10. A rule of thumb to get the cheapest car insurance is to pick a small city car or small hatchback, then go for the least power
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