Car Insurance Quotes

They're affordable, fuel-efficient and easy to park on city streets. But the savings and convenience of minicars can quickly disappear after a low-speed crash.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently conducted crash tests for dozens of popular cars (seven of which were very small cars) to determine bumper-repair costs. With the exception of the Smart Fortwo, the little vehicles didn't fare very well.

Each car was crashed in four different tests (full-front, front corner, full-rear and rear corner). By far, the Kia Rio minicar was the worst performer in the "poor" rating category. It suffered a combined damage total of $9,380 in all four crash tests, which ranged in speed from 3 to 6 miles per hour. In the full-front test alone, the Rio racked up $3,701 in damage — nearly 30 percent of its purchase price.

"The bottom line is that this type of damage is unacceptable," says Russ Rader, spokesperson for the IIHS. "A bumper is your first line of defense in a low-speed crash. You want the bumper to take a hit and protect the most expensive parts of the vehicle."

At the same time, the Smart Fortwo microcar was one of only three cars to earn an "acceptable" rating. None of the 61 cars tested earned a "good" rating. The Chevrolet Aveo scored "marginal." The Mini Cooper, Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, and Hyundai Accent each scored "poor."

By IIHS's definition, a good bumper will absorb the force of a low-speed collision and slow the vehicle before there's extensive damage to the car's grill, hood, lights and fender.

"Bumpers can be designed so there's no damage in these low-speed impacts," states Joe Nolan, senior vice president at IIHS. "At a minimum, repairs should cost less than the typical insurance deductible for a collision, which is $500."

In IIHS tests, a car's "weighed average" bumper repair cost must be less than $500 for a "good" rating, $1,000 for "acceptable" and $1,500 or more are "poor."

Expensive bumper repairs also affect car insurance premiums, Rader says. "This is mostly what insurance companies pay for when they pay for collision claims. So we all end up paying for that in the form of a higher insurance premium."

Insure.com recently calculated average car insurance premiums for almost 300 vehicles in model year 2009 (see chart at right). Averages were based on a 40-year-old single male driver with a good driving record. Rates were averaged across multiple ZIP codes and insurance companies.

This is the first year IIHS assigned a bumper-crash rating from "good" to "poor" for each vehicle, Rader says. In years past, the organization simply reported the damage totals.

"We hope that consumers will use these ratings as a way to zero in on the vehicles that have bumpers which provide better protection from damage and crashes," Rader says.