Press office

Italian cars are target of choice for car thieves

New research suggests the nationality of your car could have an effect on your chance of being a victim of car crime.  Research by car insurance specialist, Admiral reveals that Italian cars are more than twice as likely to be broken into than cars from any other country.

Admiral looked at data from nearly 180,000 cases of car crime and found that when it comes to the nationality of the car, Italian cars such as Fiat and Alfa Romeo are head and shoulders above other nationality of car when it comes to being broken into.  Second in the list was French cars and third German cars.  Swedish cars such as Volvo and Saab are the least likely to be broken into by thieves.

In fact owners of Italian cars are three times more likely to have something stolen from their car than motorists with Swedish cars.

However, when it comes to cars being stolen, Italian cars are only in fifth place. American models are top of the list of stolen cars, just ahead of British and German marques.  Spanish cars are the least likely to be stolen.

Admiral managing director, Sue Longthorn, said, “Most people associate cars from different countries with different qualities - for example that German cars tend to be well engineered, Italian cars stylish and British cars classy.  We wanted to see if there were any trends when it came down to the nationality of cars being targeted by thieves.

“There are many reasons why certain cars are more popular with car thieves than others.  It could be they are more desirable for professional thieves, or maybe their security systems are not so good but of course in many cases it is just that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Statistics based on percentage of vehicles in theft from and theft of claims with Admiral Group brands between Jan 2004 and Jan 2007.

Issue date: 15-02-07