Drivers spend up to 14% of their salary on insurance

Some drivers are paying up to 14% of their salary on car insurance simply because of their occupation, research has found.

An investigation by Confused.com found that doormen, have to pay an average of £3,215 for car insurance, but only earn an average of just over £23,000.

Although that’s an eye watering premium – not to mention a huge proportion of annual income – it’s not the highest average for an occupation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, professional footballers top the table of insurance costs, spending an average of £3,920. However, because Confused.com says the average Premier League player earns a reported £2.6 million a year, insurance accounts for just 0.2 percent of their income.

However, like doormen, some more usual professionals find themselves spending a huge amount of their income on insuring their wheels. Ironically, car body repairers are among the worst-hit, having to fork out an average of 12% of their salary on insurance. Railway guards and coast guards are also hit hard, spending an average of 8% of their annual incomes on insurance.

At the other end of the scale, police sergeants spend an average of just £419 on insurance – a mere 1% of their £41,000 average annual salary.

According to Confused.com, though, these discrepancies between premiums are not random. For example, because doormen tend to work night shifts, their cars will be parked overnight when secured car parks are often closed, putting them at risk of vandalism or theft.

Car body repairers, meanwhile, tend to modify their vehicles, enhancing their cars’ performance and desirability, increasing insurance costs.

Amanda Stretton, motoring editor at Confused.com, said: “Drivers in some occupations might be surprised when they learn just how much they are paying for their car insurance. And this is down to factors such as unsecure working locations, unsociable working hours or the value of cars they drive, which could all lead to expensive claims. Unfortunately this means that some drivers could be forking out as much as 14% of their salary on car insurance.”