New trends in international car injuries

Swedes' travel by car abroad continues to increase. Since the pandemic, the curve points upwards annually. Expensive airline tickets and uncertainty in the world are two of the reasons. However, SOS International sees some trend breaks in its statistics on which places the Swedes choose to drive to.

The countries around the Mediterranean, Greece, Italy, Spain and France all decline in this year's summation.

"The fact that we see Italy declining is not surprising since we had a large number of cases after the hailstorm last year. Croatia is also decreasing. The fact that all these popular holiday destinations are declining shows that Swedes want to see something else," says Cecilia Billhammar, Manager Team International, SOS International.

Instead, countries such as Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic are increasing. The latter two increase by over 30%. In Switzerland, the number of registered claims increased by 50% compared to the previous year.

"Norway is also increasing among registered cases, and looking at what these four countries have in common, it is not difficult to conclude that beautiful nature and mountains are more attractive than the beach and sea this year," comments Cecilia Billhammar.

Large spread on the age of the car
This year, we have received cars that are registered in traffic from 1949 as the oldest and 2024, a range of 54 years! The emphasis on damaged cars is between 4 and 10 years.

This, in turn, leads to most people contacting their insurance company for help rather than their car brand assistance.

The statistics also show that it is the younger cars that are mainly affected by electrical faults and the older ones are affected by engine failures

"We see it every year, many people take their 10-year-old faithful servant and want to go down south, but the engine does not hold up to the long highways at high speed," says Cecilia Billhammar.

Many people's holidays come to a halt already in Germany because the engine gives up.

Engine failure is the most common type of damage
Engine failures dominate the frequency of injuries and have even increased slightly from the previous year. This year, 4 out of 10 cars had problems with the engine. After engine failure, punctures follow, followed by accidents as the most common type of injury.

However, SOS International sees a slight improvement regarding the accidents. The number of accidents is decreasing from the previous year, in terms of the number of injuries, this is the lowest figure that SOS International has measured.

This year, the frequency is 14%, in 2020 the figure was just over 20%.  

Top 3 Countries of Injury 2024

1. Germany
2. Norway
3. Denmark