Before you buy car insurance - from your broker, or just rolling over with your existing insurer - use the online tools many insurers offer. You are likely to be surprised at the wide range of premiums quoted

As many readers will know, we monitor car insurance premiums via the online tools some insurers offer.

We have been tracking them all year. We will report on the volatility in a separate review, but now we want to point out how big the range of quotes are between them.

Over the past month, Cove has trimmed some pricing, while the others have held their stable.

But standardised comparisons just show how wide the quoted ranges are. It isn't consistent; different insurers have the highest rates, different insurers have the lowest rates. An these vary between car brands, and especially between locations.

Today we want to highlight how different these can be. It is a useful way to point out why 'shopping around' is very worthwhile.

For this review, we established some standard addresses in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, and a standard driver profile. Then we applied these to the most popular new car currently sold in 2025, and the most popular used/import car sold three years ago.

For a 2025 Toyota RAV4, average premiums are +24% higher in Auckland than Christchurch, +2% higher in Wellington than Christchurch. It is similar for the popular used 2022 Toyota Aqua.

For the new RAV4, however, the range between companies is also very wide.

In Auckland, the current top online quote based on our standard profile is by Cove at $1930/year, 18% more than AMI's $1670 which was the lowest at this time.

But in Wellington, the high quote was from AMI, with Tower being -30% lower. And in Christchurch, the range is also between AMI and Tower, but only a 9% range.

For the Toyota Aqua, the variations are much larger, with Cove offering the lower current premium costs. In Auckland the difference is 41% between Cove (low) and Tower (high). For Wellington it is between AMI (high) and Cove (low) and a 60% range. For Christchurch it is the same two, but a 40% spread.

These reviews are 'standardised'. They won't relate to your particular situation, so doing this exercise yourself, with your driver profile, your vehicle, and your location profile, will give a different result.

What we have shown here however is the surprisingly wide premium differences between the insurers, and the quite different results between the three cities we covered.

This is a strong signal that you should shop around, and for your car get at least five quotes. Five is an unusual recommendation, far more effort than the standard 'three' usually recommended. But as you can see in our results, there can be significant savings, and you won't know until you check.

Fortunately, the insurers online tools make that pretty easy.

For another way to check the ranges, we have partnered with insurance comparison site Quashed and their tool that can suggest how your own specific vehicle will attract insurance premium cost. It too gives a range of expected premium levels, more targeted to your specific vehicle.

Here is the tool. You only need enter your registration number to get a result.