Insuring a real race car can be difficult and expensive, and depends on so many factors that it takes several gigabytes of files to determine the insurability of a car, but we widdled it down to some key factors that the insurance companies look for: danger, cost, potential harm to others and other's property, and owners ability to pay (often judged in large part by the car you choose to get). One kind of person might hire professionals to drive their $300,000 Rolls Royce Phantoms while another might try to make a YouTube video about them jumping their $80,000 Tesla Model S. Which one would you insure?
Some shocking revelations started to emerge! There's a cap to how much almost all companies will cover exotic car owners and their rides. Insuring a classic car is a totally different world, most softened filed under "assets" so the likes of the Ferrari GTO that sold for $43,000,000 will actually be easier to insure than the first one on this list. Other factors that made these uninsurable are things like newness, crash tests, and statistics that really can't be decided by anyone but insurance analysts.
To insure cars upwards of a few hundred thousand you can't just go to your favorite gecko or Flo, and we cannot emphasize how many spam calls we got after trying! No, sometimes you might even need to plead with several companies especially if you were so foolhardy so as to get one of these on a loan! Having a lienholder is really the nail in the coffin that makes the last car on this list 99% impossible to insure!
Note: these aren't personal insurance quotes and this is not financial or investment advice.
10 Porsche 911 GT3 RS
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This race-ready car can be cheap... $430 a year for perfect drivers who don't race to get minimum coverage if they own one full-out... so almost nobody. A slightly riskier driver with even one half-bad ticket can find themselves paying as much as $5,000 a year according to Quote Inspector.
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The drivers of a nice GT3 are rare and unpredictable collectively. Maybe the 60-year-old man likes to take his to track days and the young Lawyer uses it cause it's better for commuting to work twice a week. The full coverage average, if you can find it, comes to $2,440, or $203 a month, unless you live in Michigan where the average premium is $3,650, $1,550 over the U.S. average! (Cheapest is Virginia at a mere $1,260).
9 Mercredes-Benz S-Class
The S-Classes like the S450 are pretty nice cars, but starting at $94,250 and having a medium-high 362 horsepower doesn't seem to warrant a spot on this list, does it? While it would take an analyst and a lawyer to get a peek inside the insurance companies algorithm it's not hard to guess why this is so costly, with a high-risk premium of $4,458 a year.
The fact is, the comforts and style of a large luxury sedan with an emphasis on safety can only have one target audience: the elderly. While this might drive up the average when the consumer's average age tops 50 years, a younger owner would surely have it better, right? Well, since a great many owners have teenagers in the house, this can really peak your costs. If they're actually on the insurance you're looking at $7,238! Having driven one as a teen... it's not hard to see why this is risky. It's a fun and forgiving car that makes you numb to your actions.
8 Maserati Ghibli
Maseratis, being Italian, are not reliable. Though they cost even less than an S-Class ($76,200 starting), they are sportier and rarer, and it's far better as a status symbol than a "business write-off" or "commuter car." Some say that insurance companies know way more than they should, but that's the business.
So, with their infinite algorithmic knowledge they seem to know that no matter how these drivers come off, they will always be riskier, possibly because this is also the entry-level Maserati, opening the door to the less-financially-stable side of the buying spectrum. So what's the damage to drive around with a 580 hp Italian trident? $3,800 a year for a good driver!
7 Nissan GT-R R35
The GT-R is a tame, gentlemanly car that is favored by people with a 950 FICO score and who do nothing but golf. Okay, that's all a lie. The Nurburgring-slaying "Godzilla" is known for staying true to its JDM roots and being the fastest production Japanese car in almost all respects.
Naturally, any car named "Godzilla" will be cheap to insure, right? Well, the owners of these do tend to modify and race them a lot, so collision ends up costing $1,020 per year alone and $4,290 for anyone with more than two tickets in the past six years. Teenagers on the policy make it a measly $6,904 or $575 a month.
6 Tesla Model S Plaid
Let's look at the facts: people are already crashing these due to the non-circular steering wheels, the first ones were recalled because of fires, and it's dang fast! Costing just $130,000 doesn't change the fact that you can turn this 4,766 lbs car into a 4,766 lbs artillery shell in a mere 1.89 seconds.
The problem then isn't covering the car at all, but a liability. Many young YouTubers and college graduates are attracted to the cheap speed and fart noise functions of Tesla, so the likelihood of harm is tremendous. So, what's the damage? On average, $4,143 a year! That's a full $345 per month! If that's not a red flag to not get one for your teenage, I don't know what is.
5 Mercedes-AMG GT
The record-holding production car around the Nurburgring was bound to have some extra risk, right? The RWD car outperforms many AWD cars like the Porsche GT3 RS and Nissan GT-R, and for that reason is dangerous to drive in. From experience, we know that they're prone to fishtailing at the drop of a hat, and being a two-door means it's a chick magnet!
Frankly, it's sadly very difficult to find a purist sports car with less weight and more danger than you can slide under the radar for insuring. At a minimum, you're looking at $2,500 a year. If you live with teens or let a teen drive it...let's just say... don't.
4 BMW i8
The BMW i8 gets points or rarity. It was an exciting concept when it hit the screens of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, but it never did amazing in sales. The BMW hybrid may be overdesigned or too complicated, but whatever the reason it hasn't been flying off the showroom floors. That said, of the 20,465 made, only about 3/4s have sold... point being that it's very rare.
To ensure an irreplaceable car means that you either get "collectors insurance" which means you don't drive the car to work every day so you can set a certain amount you'd like to be reimbursed in case of an accident and if you meet the minimum for collision, you're good to go! If you do plan to drive your car more than once a week, you need to fork up upwards of $400 a month for that Beamer with the gullwing doors.
3 Audi R8 (V10)
So... you want to feel like Iron Man do you? Well, then you have to pay Avengers-level premiums! A V10 R8 (as if we'd even talk about the other one) is one of the riskiest and "affordable" cars you can buy. This and its engine-donor, the Lamborghini Huracan, are both equally difficult to insure thanks to the mid-engine racecar thrills they provide.
The $180-$220,000 cars will set you back a cool $3,000 or more a year with significantly higher collision insurance making up $1,350 of that! Understandably, these blue and green colored cars are only for the young of heart, and so accidents are bound to happen.
2 Maserati Quattroporte
While there are pricier cars that exist in another tier of insurance, the Quattroporte is one of the last in the line of dangerous, expensive, and recklessly driven cars. The Quattroporte isn't actually that expensive of a supercar coming in at just over $100k MSRP. The twin-turbo Ferrari V8 under the hood may be the "Root" (pun intended) of these issues. After all, what can go wrong with 580 Italian stations pumping torque to all four wheels?
Well, the unreliable, unforgiving Italian nature of the beast is that this isn't a car you get to keep in a collection, pick up grandkids, or commute to your accounting job unless you're doing a lot of accounting. Money Talks News puts the average annual premium at a cool $5,024! Teenagers and ticket-getters can expect to pay $10,500 or more a year, a nasty amount for any luxury sedan! That being said, what about supercars?...
1 Bugatti Chiron
Now, the supercar tier! While similar cars like the Paganis and Koenigsegs will compare similarly, the Bugatti tops out all of them in the "collectors car insurance" bracket. "Collectors car insurance" means you don't daily drive the car, and no sane insurance company will cover the full amount. Instead, you agree to certain amounts based on minimum liability and collision and pick your own uninsured motorist coverage if you so chose, and then pay that. At a minimum, you would be blessed to be paying less than $500 a month to have it sit in a garage most of the year. Typically you're looking at $6,000-$20,000 a year, but not too much more since liability is almost never offered to be more than $500,000 of coverage from the insurance company.
Well, what if you want to drive it to work every day? You may not be able to find a car insurance provider but you can still self-insure! Most of the ultra-wealthy probably do this to drive their cars. It's simply a matter of meeting certain requirements in your state and/or having the cash to deposit at your DMV for the minimum coverage. If it's not allowed to purely self-insure in your state you can actually use cash, in the same way, to greatly lower your deductibles and make driving your Hennessy Venom on the snowy freeway to work every day a financially responsible endeavor!