uSwitch.com: June new car sales

In response to the SMMT's new car sales figures, Mark Monteiro, car insurance expert at uSwitch.com, comments: "Today's report from the SMMT indicates that the scrappage scheme is making small inroads for the UK's struggling car insurance industry.

"However, the issue of vehicle depreciation has still not been addressed. The fact remains that consumers participating will completely lose the £2,000 incentive after just 88 days of owning their brand new car. This means that the 60,000 consumers that already signed up will lose £379 million in depreciation by June 2010 - an average of £8,321 each.

"This is particularly an issue for those buying the Ford Focus, the second best selling new car last month. These consumers will lose £8,635 (51%) of the value of their car by June 2010. Just last week, Ford announced 12,000 orders under the new scrappage scheme representing 20% of all 60,000 orders placed under the scheme to date.

"To ease the depreciation burden for consumers, we would like to see the Government dig a little deeper. If their contribution were to be increased £1,000 to £3,000 making the total discount £4,000 off of every new car purchased, the first year depreciation of £8,321 would be almost halved. This could really help the industry hit the 1.5 million participant target and reduce the total depreciation bill from £9.5 billion to £6.5 billion for these consumers in the next 12 months."