General

45 Vehicles Win Top IIHS Safety Award

By 04/02/2026 3:36pm
  • The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave its highest safety award to 45 vehicles this year.
  • The institute is a project of the insurance industry and has a reputation as a tough grader.

Forty-five new cars took home the highest safety award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in 2026, down from 66 last year as the organization tightened award criteria.

“This year, we’re asking automakers to make excellent protection for back seat passengers the norm,” said IIHS President David Harkey. For the institute’s highest award, known as Top Safety Pick+, “We’re requiring crash avoidance systems that are better at preventing pedestrian crashes as well as higher speed crashes with other vehicles,” he explained.

About the IIHS

  • This isn’t the government’s crash testing program. It’s a harder program from an insurance industry safety lab.

Most countries have just one crash testing agency, but America has two.

The federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) performs legally mandated crash tests.

A consortium of car insurance companies funds the IIHS, which performs a separate series of crash tests. They tend to be tougher than government tests because the institute can adjust its criteria more easily, whereas NHTSA must follow a lengthy policy process and allow industry input.

The IIHS awards two levels: Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+. In all crash tests, it scores cars as Good, Acceptable, Moderate, or Poor.

Tests Get Harder Regularly

  • The institute has toughened its standards in recent years and announced plans to add more criteria to the award.

In 2022, the institute added a rear seat dummy to its moderate front overlap test – a 40 mph crash that simulates the kind of partial head-on crash that can occur when a car drifts out of its lane.

New for this year, cars needed to score Good in rear-seat safety to win either award.

The institute also began testing crash-avoidance systems, measuring whether a car warns its driver and brakes to try to avoid a vehicle or a pedestrian. To win either award, vehicles must earn at least an Acceptable rating in pedestrian crash avoidance. To win the top honor, they must do the same in vehicle crash avoidance and make those safety systems standard at every trim level.

The IIHS isn’t done making its awards harder to earn. It has already announced plans to add driver attention monitoring standards to the criteria soon.

A Few Surprises

  • Minivans seem like the ultimate family-friendly vehicles, but none managed to win the award.
  • Only two large pickups, the Tesla Cybertruck and Toyota Tundra, qualified.

Crash-test data don’t support some choices that seem logical to many car shoppers.

The old rule that “in a crash, the heavier vehicle wins” does not protect people in full-size trucks. Only one, the Tesla Cybertruck, won top honors.

Perhaps even more surprising, not a single minivan earned an award from the IIHS.

“It’s disappointing that minivans continue to struggle to provide the best available protection for passengers in the back, considering that these are supposed to be family vehicles,” Harkey said. “Based on these results, parents may want to consider some of the more affordable sedans and SUVs that earn awards.”

The Winners:

In a few cases, the IIHS specifies that only cars built after certain dates qualify for its awards. This usually reflects a change the manufacturer made midway through a production run.

As the IIHS changes its rules, manufacturers sometimes change how they build cars, such as making better headlights standard across all trim levels instead of just the top trim.

Small Cars

Midsize Cars

Midsize Luxury Car

Large Luxury Car

Small SUVs

Midsize SUVs

Midsize Luxury SUVs

Large SUVs

Large Pickup