Young Drivers Insurance.

Tomc@T

Tomc@T

Tomc@T

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3 Dec 2006
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Somewhere I shouldn't be!
Good evening.

My son (18 years old) is desperate to get a car, he is currently unemployed and struggling to find work within an easy bus journey ride.

He passed his test 6 months back and we are going to get him to do a pass plus course.

We have had 2 quotes so far:

With our current insurance - Admiral - 3rd party, fire & theft = £3000

Another recommended company Go Skippy = £6200!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously this is not viable.

He is gutted as he wanted to test drive a car tonight, (£2700, Fiat Punto 1.2, 38K miles 56 plate) and it will not happen now.

Who do the younger drivers of OcUK use for their insurance and what does anyone recommend to get this lower?

Also what "type" of car attracts cheaper insurance? or is it purely down to his age and potential risk?

Thanks in advance. :)
 
In my case, it was down to postcode, not age really. I did a quote (18, just passed etc) and used my postcode and it came to £1100. I did the exact same quote using the same car (207) but using a different postcode (a friends) and it went up to £2200. This was using Liverpool Victoria.

For cheaper insurance, it is normally safe cars (high safety rating, low power etc). I quoted my 207 vs a 206 and the 207 was cheaper.

I would have done the pass plus course if I had to do it again. I am with Liverpool Victoria :)
 
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At his age nowhere is going to be cheap but my son found it much cheaper by getting using Insurethebox they fit a box in the car, it saved him over £1000 /yr
 
LV seemed to have a promotion on a couple of weeks ago that gave my boy a good quote on the day he passed. He is 21 though which probably helped, but they were much cheaper than the others. All the 'black box' policies came back at more than a standard policy on the day, again I assume this was age related.
Also, it appeared that pretty much any small car, regardless of engine size/power were very expensive to insure.
 
Postcode does make a big difference, but there are definitely other ways to bring down the quote. You need to look at cars that are slow, but not the type of cars young people usually drive. Think Astra 1.4, Octavia 1.4, Fabia 1.2, Yaris 1.0. Don't be afraid of getting quotes on larger saloons and estates, provided they're not powerful. Make sure you add yourself and your wife onto the policy as 2nd and third drivers (not as the main driver) as that makes it a lot cheaper and you're not fronting.

I started off at 17 in a 2005 Astra 1.4, then got a Mazda 3 Sport 2.0 and Volvo 850 T5 2.3 Turbo once I turned 18, then at 18/19 switched to a Jag XJ6 3.0 and Toyota MR2 2.0. My postcode is pretty crap as well, so it can be done.
 
After doing all the obvious (include parents as named drivers, not live in a ghetto, shop around, etc) the best I got at his age was £2.5K.

Only other thing I'd add these days is to try a Multicar policy. We've got all our family cars on an Admiral multicar policy, and they're all a good bit cheaper than they would be separately.
 
Good postcode, parking on street, comprehensive insurance, parents as named drivers, not a car typical with teens - try something the next size up mazda 3, ford focus etc - I'm with Admiral and I paid £1300 for my first year.
 
Thank you for the replies so far.

Definately food for thought on the car models.

Will try LV and see what they say.

:)
 
Unfortunately your job description can have a bit of an impact as well, with unemployed or student appearing to be one of the worst, as my sister found out not too long ago.
 
I pay £2200 for a 1.1 suzuki alto gl :p , i have a black box thing as well which ruins the whole point of having a car in my opinion. I'm with ingine or whatever they are. Must say that either the acceleration sensor doesn't work or my car is stupidity slow cos ive been 'testing' my black box recently and my braking, cornering and speed scores went down (thats bad) but acceleration stayed the same, meaning i can now enjoy 0-60 in 13.8 seconds all the time, as long as there are no corners.
 
Hudzy said:
Why would street parking be cheaper than a driveway? That seems backwards to me.
Click to expand...

Various things, more concealed for a thief to hide while breaking in, obvious which house owns it for key theft, people who can't drive crashing into their own walls and gates (my neighbour managed this more than once), potentially obscured vision pulling into the road ... It's all stats based so it boils down to more (expensive) claims from people who park on the drive instead of the road.

You could potentially take the reasoning as far as the assumption people who park on a driveway are less practiced at parking on streets and so are crashing into other cars more when they pop to town and have to parallel park quickly with a queue of impatient motorists behind them.
 
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OP try Bell. They might be better as they fit those black boxes to their customer's cars.
 
As others have said, smaller cars are not necessarily the cheapest, as they are your typical "first time driver" cars, try looking for something a bit more unusual.
 
Run some more quotes with Admiral bearing in mind the following:

1) 3rd party has never been cheaper than fully comprehensive with a high excess for me.
2) Where you park the car has an impact but in the opposite way to conventional thinking. Street is the cheapest, then drive, then garage.
3) Put two experienced middle aged women from your friends/family as named drivers on his policy.
4) Pass plus actually put a quote of mine up when I was considering doing it.
5) If he can get a job before taking out the insurance, that may reduce the quote.

The cheapest car I found to insure for my GF was a C1/107/Aygo, if you can bring yourself to get one.

You need to play around with the options and see how they affect the price. Spend a boring couple of hours doing it.
 
Tried Aviva?

They do Rapid No-Claims insurance - Pay for 9 months , Providing there is no claim they will give you 12 months no claims discount?

I have been driving for 4 years now - Age 25 - Drive a 1.6 Citroen DS3 with me as Policy Holder/Main Driver and Dad as Named Driver - Pay in the region of £650/yr Fully Comp
 
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