3.1.2006
Safety and security accolades for Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan

The Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan has achieved top ratings for safety and security in its first appearance in an annual survey of insurance claims published in the United States by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI).

The latest report, covering 371 different models on U.S. roads between 2002 and 2004, gives the 9-3 Sport Sedan a best-possible assessment of "substantially better than average" for both injury and theft protection.

Ratings are drawn up following an analysis of data from 75 participating insurance companies, covering the frequency of road accident injury claims and total loss payments due to theft from or of the vehicle.

The Saab 9-5 Sedan and SportCombi also perform extremely well, both achieving a "substantially better than average" result for injury protection. The Sedan receives a similar security rating, while there was insufficient data available to assess the SportCombi.

"This is an outstanding first HLDI result for the 9-3 Sport Sedan," said Thomas Fritzon, Development Engineer Security at Saab Automobile. "A high level of theft protection was designed into this car from the very beginning and we consulted insurance industry experts during the development process. The value of all this work is born out by the HLDI findings. It is also gratifying to see that our crash safety continues to be so effective where it matters most, out on the roads, protecting real people in real-life accidents."

The Highway Loss Data Institute is an affiliate organization of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) a non-profit research and communications organization in the United States funded by auto insurers. HLDI processes and publishes data showing how insurance losses for injury, theft and damage repairs can vary between different vehicles on the market.