Car color generally does not affect insurance rates; popular myths about red cars costing more are false, as insurers base premiums on Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN),, vehicle, price, safety rating, and repair costs rather than paint color. While insurers don't officially track color, dark colors like black might sometimes show slightly higher risks due to lower visibility, but this is negligible compared to factors like driver history and car model.
The color of your car doesn't affect your insurance rate. Instead, your insurance company uses other information, like your car's age, location, usage, and your driving record, to help determine insurance rates. Learn more about the factors that impact auto insurance pricing.
You may have heard red cars are more expensive to insure. But, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III), the color of the car you drive does not affect the price of auto insurance.
Car color doesn't directly affect insurance rates, but brighter and less popular colors like beige, green, and orange may have slightly lower rates. These colors are less likely to be stolen and often have a lower resale value which might lead to cheaper insurance premiums than more popular colors like black and white.
While the color of your vehicle will not usually directly affect your insurance rates, a custom paint job will. This is because a custom paint job will cost more to repair or replace if it's damaged. Anything that increases a vehicle's total value can also increase the insurance rates.
For the best resale value, neutral colors like white, black, gray, and silver are consistently top performers due to broad appeal, while studies show yellow, orange, and green can sometimes retain the most value, especially in specific vehicle types like sports cars or trucks, as they are less common but still desired by certain buyers. Bright or unusual colors generally hurt resale value, but unique colors on niche vehicles (like orange on a truck) can defy this trend due to supply and demand.
White cars statistically get pulled over the most because they are the most common vehicle color on the road, followed by red, gray, and silver, but red cars might be ticketed at a higher rate relative to their numbers. While white cars account for the highest total stops due to sheer volume, red cars, often associated with sports cars, are ticketed more often than their percentage of cars on the road would suggest, indicating a disproportionate stop rate.
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#1 Black. Black might look cool, but it comes with the highest accident risk of any color. Studies show that black vehicles are 10% to 47% more likely to be involved in accidents than white ones. That's a pretty big difference.
Color and Car Insurance
Auto insurers will never calculate your auto insurance premiums based on the color of your vehicle; that's the bottom line.
The color of a car can significantly impact its resale value, with less common colors like yellow and orange typically retaining their value better than more popular colors like black and white.
People who prefer black vehicles have a taste for elegant things and often opt for higher-end choices in everything they purchase. Black is also associated with self-confidence and social status. Silver is a futuristic color that is also associated with precious metals and expensive things.
Black Cars
At least one study found that you're 47 percent more likely to be in a crash if you drive a black vehicle. Other studies also find that black is the most dangerous color, but offer a more reserved projection.
What auto color is most associated with theft? According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), black, silver, white, green and gold are the colors most associated with vehicle thefts. Colors that more easily blend in with a crowd–white, gray, silver and black–tend to be reported stolen the most.
Most Popular Car Colors – iSeeCars.com Study
The team at iSeeCars.com conducted an analysis of over 20 million cars from model years 2004-2023 sold from January 2023 to April 2024 to determine the color distribution. After careful research, the answer is actually black and white.
In terms of the best or safest car colours, it is recommended that you stick with brighter colours, like white. A lighter car colour will be more visible to other drivers, especially at night. White cars have a 12% less chance of accidents than black cars, despite weather conditions and time of day.
The main reason for the notion of certain colours being less stable is based on how our eyes respond to certain colours on the spectrum. White vehicle paint fades at the same rate as black and red colours, but white has no 'pigment' and therefore it is not as noticeable.
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