Regionalklasse

The Regionalklasse is the regional rating factor German motor insurers apply based on the claims history of the registration district in German vehicle registration. It reflects where the car is registered, not where it is driven. The GDV, the German insurance association, publishes updated Regionalklassen every year, one set for liability cover and separate sets for Teilkasko and Vollkasko. Each of the roughly 400 registration districts is graded on how much its registered vehicles cost insurers in claims: dense urban districts with frequent collisions and theft rate worse than quiet rural ones. Liability classes run from 1 to 12, Teilkasko from 1 to 16 and Vollkasko from 1 to 9, and moving between districts can change a premium by a double-digit percentage without anything else about the driver or the car changing. This is the reason the registering district matters financially: a car registered in a rural Brandenburg district commonly falls into a cheaper Regionalklasse than the same car registered in central Berlin, Hamburg or Munich. The classification is set annually and applies automatically at renewal.