Are these the safest, riskiest drivers in UAE?

Dubai: If the number of insurance claims are to go by, those who have expensive wheels are less likely to get into an accident than most people in the country, hence they’re considered the safest drivers.

At the other end of the scale, drivers who own least costly vehicles tend to encounter more issues on the road compared to their peers, and are therefore risky to insure.

Findings of a new study released by yallcompare showed that those who own vehicles worth between Dh400,000 and Dh500,000 made the least number of insurance claims in the past year, just 6.5 per cent, making them the safest road users.

Those who drive cars worth between Dh50,000 and Dh100,000 are the riskiest, with 11.3 per cent of them having made a claim in the past 12 months.

In terms of age groups, the younger drivers are considered worst road users, particularly those who belong to the 25 to 29 age bracket, with 11.9 per cent of them having made a claim on their UAE car insurance.

The comparison site also looked at the number of claims by nationality and those who come from France, the United Kingdom and Australia can take heart: they emerged as the safest drivers in the country.

According to yallacompare, about nine in ten of French drivers in the UAE did not make any insurance claim in the past year, which indicates that the majority didn’t encounter or report any road accident in the past 12 months.

"French residents of the UAE are the safest drivers in the country, with 94.4 per cent of French drivers having made no claims in the past year," yallacompare said.

Following closely behind are drivers from the United Kingdom, with 93.4 per cent of them having no claims in the past year.

Residents from Australia and the United States tied to the third spot, with just 6.9 per cent of drivers from these markets having made an insurance claim in the past 12 months.

Also at the other end of the scale are drivers from the Philippines, with 13.1 per cent of them having made a claim on their insurance policies.

Those from Egypt showed up in the bottom list as well, with 11.9 per cent of them having made a claim, as well as drivers from Sudan, with 11.1 per cent making an insurance claim.

According to yallacompare, those in the bottom of the list are considered among the riskiest drivers to insure, since they made the most number of insurance claims.

The comparison site, however, did not specify how many insurance holders were covered by the survey. "The study is based on all quotes served by our car insurance comparison platform over the past three months," the site said.

"We sell many thousands of policies online every month, and the number of quotes we serve is in order of magnitude higher - due to the fact that each customer gets a large selection of quotes for each enquiry."

Yallacompare also did not specify the proportion of insurance claims in relation to the population size of every nationality.

According to various sources, French expatriates in the country account for 27,000 individuals, while British nationals account for 100,000.

In comparison, according to the Commission on Filipino Overseas, close to a million Filipinos (822,410) reside in the UAE, making them one of the biggest expatriate communities in the country.