How Do Vehicle Safety Ratings Impact Insurance Rates?

Last Updated on December 11, 2025

You may have heard that vehicle safety ratings impact car insurance rates. That’s true: the safer your vehicle is judged to be, the more comfortable insurers tend to feel about covering it—and that can affect what you pay.

Cars with strong safety ratings are less likely to produce severe injuries in a crash. Because insurers are often responsible for paying medical bills after an accident, better safety performance usually means fewer and smaller claims, and ultimately lower medical payouts for insurers.

Insurers look at hundreds of data points when they price your policy. Below, we’ll walk through how vehicle safety ratings work, who sets them, and how they fit into your overall insurance rate.

Key Takeaways

• Vehicle safety ratings measure how well a car avoids crashes and protects occupants in a collision, and insurers use that information as one factor in setting your auto insurance rates.
• Safer vehicles usually lead to fewer and less severe injury claims, which can help keep your bodily injury, PIP, and medical-related premiums lower over time.
• Advanced safety features—like airbags, automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, and stability control—can reduce crash risk, though the high cost to repair sensors and cameras can sometimes push collision premiums higher.
• The best way to use safety ratings is to pick a vehicle class, choose models with top scores from IIHS and NHTSA, confirm the safety features on your desired trim, and then compare insurance quotes before you buy.

How Vehicle Safety Ratings Work

When you see a vehicle advertised as a “Top Safety Pick” or boasting “5-star safety,” that’s based on standardized crash tests and safety evaluations. Different organizations rate vehicles a bit differently, but they generally look at three core questions:

• How well does the vehicle avoid or mitigate crashes (crash avoidance and driver-assistance tech)?
• How well does the vehicle protect its passengers in a collision (crashworthiness)?
• How likely is the vehicle to roll over or expose occupants to severe forces in a crash?

Some vehicles excel at helping you avoid crashes in the first place. With strong brakes, stable handling, and advanced driver-assistance systems, drivers can often slam on the brakes or steer sharply to avoid a sudden hazard without losing control.

Others shine in crash performance. Their frames, crumple zones, and airbags are designed to maintain the passenger compartment and absorb impact forces in a collision, so occupants are more likely to walk away with minor injuries instead of life-threatening ones.

The very best-rated vehicles do both: they help you avoid crashes and protect you extremely well when a crash does happen. These models typically earn the top awards from safety organizations.

Who Awards Vehicle Safety Ratings?

The two best-known U.S. vehicle safety rating organizations are:

• Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

IIHS is an independent, insurance-funded research organization. It performs frontal, side, rear, and rollover tests, plus evaluations of crash-avoidance technology and headlight performance. IIHS rates most categories as Poor, Marginal, Acceptable, or Good, and gives “Top Safety Pick” awards to the best performers. You can search ratings by make and model directly on the IIHS site.

NHTSA is a federal government agency. Its New Car Assessment Program uses a familiar 5-star scale to rate frontal crash, side crash, and rollover risk. NHTSA also publishes an overall star rating for many vehicles and lets you compare vehicles side by side.

In addition to these two, several consumer sites aggregate safety scores and real-world data, including:

• Edmunds, MotorTrend, Car and Driver, and Carfax, which blend IIHS and NHTSA data with their own testing and reviews
• Informed for Life, which combines IIHS and NHTSA ratings with vehicle weight and other factors to create an overall safety index for many vehicles

These resources make it easier to quickly compare safety across different models and classes when you’re shopping for a new or used car.

How to Find the Safest Vehicles Right Now

Safety rankings change every year as new models are released and testing standards evolve. Instead of relying on an old “safest cars” list, use current tools whenever you’re car shopping:

• Start at IIHS.org: Look up vehicles that earn “Top Safety Pick” or “Top Safety Pick+” awards in the size/type you’re considering.
• Check NHTSA’s 5-star ratings: Aim for vehicles with a 5-star overall rating and strong scores for frontal and side impacts.
• Use aggregators like Informed for Life: These tools combine multiple safety sources (and sometimes weight or driver death rates) into a single safety score.
• Confirm key advanced safety features: Even among top-rated vehicles, not every trim has the same level of safety tech. Make sure the exact trim and options you’re considering include the features you want.

By checking these sources before you buy, you can ensure your next car isn’t just affordable and comfortable—but also one of the safer options in its class.

Safety Ratings and Insurance Premiums: What’s the Connection?

Vehicle safety ratings are just one of many factors insurers use to calculate auto insurance premiums. Generally speaking:

• Safer vehicles tend to have lower injury costs. Good crash performance and modern safety tech reduce serious injuries. That can lower claims under bodily injury liability, personal injury protection (PIP), MedPay, and sometimes uninsured motorist coverage.
• Lower injury costs are good for insurers. A single serious crash can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and lifetime care. Vehicles with poor safety ratings or weak crash performance are more likely to produce catastrophic claims, so insurers often price them as higher risk.
• Safety ratings can influence both liability and physical damage coverage. Safer cars can mean fewer and less severe liability claims, and their design may also reduce the extent of damage in certain collisions.

That said, safety ratings aren’t the whole story. A bad driver in a very safe vehicle may still pay more than a careful driver in a less-safe vehicle. And some extremely safe, high-tech vehicles are more expensive to repair because sensors and cameras must be recalibrated after minor fender-benders, which can push collision and comprehensive premiums higher.

Insurers also rely on their own claim data. They may use IIHS and NHTSA ratings as a starting point, but they’ll also look at real-world crash statistics, theft rates, repair costs, and how drivers actually use a given model on the road.

For example, a safe but powerful sports car may have excellent crash-test results but still cost more to insure than a modest minivan, simply because sports car drivers tend to drive faster, get into more severe crashes, and file more expensive claims.

Other Vehicle Safety Features That Can Lower Insurance Rates

Your vehicle’s overall safety rating is only one piece of the puzzle. Insurers also pay attention to specific safety equipment that may reduce the frequency or severity of crashes, even if those features aren’t fully captured in a simple star rating.

Depending on your insurer and state, you may see discounts or favorable pricing for features such as:

• Front, side, and curtain airbags
• Blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alerts
• Automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning
• Electronic stability control (standard on modern vehicles)
• Anti-lock brakes
• Lane departure warnings and lane-keeping assistance
• Rear-view cameras and 360° camera systems
• Dashcams and other recording devices
• Safe-exit assistance and pedestrian-detection systems

Not every insurer offers a specific “safety feature” discount, but these technologies still influence the underlying claim statistics for your vehicle—so they can matter even when you don’t see a line item on your bill.

How to Use Safety Ratings When You Shop for a Car

If you’re trying to keep your insurance costs down while staying safe, use safety ratings as one of your primary shopping tools:

• Pick a vehicle size and type first. Decide whether you need a compact car, midsize sedan, small SUV, minivan, etc. Safety comparisons make the most sense within a class.
• Check IIHS and NHTSA ratings for that class. Favor vehicles with top crash-test performance and advanced crash-avoidance ratings.
• Confirm that safety features come on your chosen trim. Some safety tech is standard; other features require specific packages or higher trims.
• Get insurance quotes before you sign. Two safe vehicles can still cost very different amounts to insure due to repair costs, theft risk, and driver profiles. Always compare premiums on your short-list models.

This way, you’re choosing a car that fits your budget, keeps you safe, and doesn’t surprise you with sky-high premiums.

FAQs on Vehicle Safety Ratings and Insurance

Final Word on Safety Ratings and Insurance

Cars with strong safety ratings tend to have lower insurance costs than comparably priced vehicles with poor safety ratings, especially when it comes to injury-related coverages. Your vehicle’s safety performance is one of many factors that shape what you pay for auto insurance.

Before you buy, check safety ratings and features—and then compare insurance quotes online for the specific models you’re considering. By combining smart shopping with strong crash protection, you can protect both your wallet and the people riding with you.