Status Symbol Cars Targeted by Vandals
Friday, 20 May 2011
Alan Partridge’s car of choice, the Lexus IS, is the most frequently-vandalised car in Britain, based on an analysis of thousands of vandalism claims by online insurer swiftcover.com.
The Lexus IS, followed by the BMW Z4, Mini ONE and Mercedes CLK, made up the top four, and the majority of the vehicles in the top ten were prestige cars, with the Audi TT and BMW X5 both featuring near the top of the rankings.
Robin Reames, claims director at online insurer swiftcover.com, said: “Our research shows that luxury cars are more likely to be targeted by vandals. The majority of vehicles in the top ten are what we call ‘executive cars’, likely to be driven by high earners who see their car as a status symbol. Although people might have expected 4x4 vehicles to feature highly due to their reputation for being targeted by environmental campaigners, our research showed that only one 4x4 (the BMW X5) reached the top 10.”
The research found that high end brands were consistently targeted more than any others (BMW, Audi and Mercedes Benz were the three brands of car most likely to be maliciously damaged), and that “everyday” cars such as Ford and Citroen were vandalised less often.
swiftcover.com analysis shows the top ten cars most likely to be targeted by vandals
| Position |
Brand and model |
VV Index rating** |
| 1 |
Lexus IS |
5.56 |
| 2 |
BMW Z4 |
4.75 |
| 3 |
Mini One |
4.62 |
| 4 |
Mercedes CLK |
4.52 |
| 5 |
Audi TT |
4.48 |
| 6 |
Mazda MX-5 |
4.31 |
| 7 |
BMW X5 |
4.24 |
| 8 |
Skoda Octavia |
4.09 |
| 9 |
BMW 525 |
4.05 |
| 10 |
BMW 530 |
3.92 |
Reames continues, “Vandalism is difficult to prevent, but motorists can take measures to protect their cars. The most obvious one is not to leave cars on the street – if you’re lucky enough to have a garage, use it to keep your car out of harm’s way. Installing extra security features such as motion activated lights or security cameras will reduce your risk, as will a physical car cover to hide your car from view.”
*based on analysis of 1,949 claims for vandalism and malicious damage among the 830,000 UK vehicles currently insured by swiftcover.com. Figures adjusted to take into account numbers of cars on the road and cars with less than ten instances of vandalism/malicious damage per year removed.
**Based on the percentage chance that the car would be vandalised in a one year period, from 22 November 2010 to 22 November 2011, multiplied by 10. The most popular car on the road in the UK, the Ford Focus, has an index score of 1.9.
Ends
Notes to Editors
swiftcover.com provides cover for malicious damage as standard.
For press enquiries please contact:
Luke O’Mahony or Sean Williams
Brazil (PR agency for swiftcover.com)
020 7785 7383
swiftcover@agencybrazil.com
About swiftcover:
Based in Cobham, Surrey and employing more than 1,000 people, swiftcover.com started trading in June 2005 and was born out of a desire to revolutionise the general insurance market by making insurance quick and easy to use.
swiftcover.com offers car, home, travel and pet insurance online, and is the only insurer in Britain not to use call centres, which provides cost savings that can be passed directly onto the customer, keeping premiums low. swiftcover.com was named Best Value for Money Car Insurer in the UK in the 2010 Lovemoney.com awards.
This powerful operating model combined with successful marketing and competitive pricing has proven to be a tremendous success. In 2008 swiftcover.com achieved over half a million live policies and in May 2009 sold its millionth policy. swiftcover.com is considered to be one of the fastest-growing insurers in the UK and, as of February 2011, has more than 800,000 policy holders.
In 2007, AXA UK acquired swiftcover.com. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Insurance UK PLC which forms part of AXA Group.
About AXA:
AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 216,000 employees serving 93 million clients. In 2010, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 91 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 3.9 billion. AXA had Euro 1,104 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2010.
The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISNFR 0000120628 – Bloomberg: CS FP – Reuters: AXAF.PA). AXA’s American Depository Shares are also quoted on the OTC QX platform under the ticker symbol AXAHY.
The Group is included in the main international SRI indexes, such as Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and FTSE4GOOD.
Our previous company performance is not a guide to how we may perform in the future.
Any opinions expressed in this media communication are made as at the date of this publication but are subject to change without notice.
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