2006 Car Guide

1. Personal injury loss statistics that are average, better-than-average or substantially better-than-average based on insurance company loss experience from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
2. Driver death rate statistics that are average, better-than-average or substantially better-than-average based on information from IIHS.
3. Collision loss statistics that are average, better-than-average or substantially better-than-average based on insurance company loss experience from IIHS.
4. Overall crashworthiness evaluation of good, acceptable or marginal based on recent crash test data from the IIHS. Recent data includes model years 2001 through 2005. Vehicles that earned an overall evaluation of "poor" failed to meet this criteria. A side-impact evaluation of "poor" is also considered unacceptable, unless the side-impact test was conducted without side-impact inflatable restraints.
5. Rear crash protection evaluation of marginal, acceptable or good by the IIHS. A rear crash protection evaluation of "poor" is considered unacceptable.
6. Dual front driver and passenger air bags as standard equipment, and side-impact air bags standard or available as optional equipment (or available within the vehicle series).
7. Four-wheel anti-lock brakes are standard equipment, or available as an extra-cost option.
8. No rating increase has been assigned based on ERIE's Car Experience Rating (CER) program. This program rates vehicles based on their overall physical damage loss experience.
9. No high performance car or sports car surcharges apply.

Each year a list of the “Top 120” automobiles is prepared by Product Development and published on this web site.

The vehicles listed are recommended 2006 models based on safety and insurance value projections. Approximate 2006 price new ranges for these cars are shown in parentheses next to each model name.

Similar to previous years, we will continue to provide detailed information about safety equipment such as anti-lock brakes and air bags. Following the name and price range of each model will be a pair of letters in parentheses. The first letter will indicate if anti-lock brakes are standard (S) or optional (O) equipment. The second letter indicates whether side-impact air bags are standard (S), optional (O), or not available (N).

A third letter listed provides the latest overall crashworthiness score as tested by the Highway Loss Data Institute.The letters used are very good (VG), good (G), acceptable (A), and marginal (M). For models where crash test data was not available, but presumed to be average or better, the letters N/A are used.