I finally sympathise with young drivers

Adam

Adam

Adam

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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I have always been very sceptical of young drivers getting ridiculous insurance quotes. Personally, I have always been very lucky with insurance. From the age of 19 I have never paid more than £750 for my own insurance per year.

Anyway, my brother has got a job in Liverpool (L17 postocde) and requires his own insurance. Been helping to get some quotes, cheapest so far is £3411 for 10 months from bell direct. While I accept its a high risk area and my brothers age does him no favours (he is 18), £3411 is more than the cost of his KA. He will actually only be at the Liverpool post code temporarily (less than 6 months), so its a ridiculous quote.

I just can't believe how anyone his age is expected to have their own insurance. He will be on a poor wage to start with so £3500 is quite a dent in his earnings, before he even starts! No wonder so many young people are uninsured.
 
I have somehow escaped this also, how i am not quite sure, i can only come to the concusion that the area you specify makes an absolutely stonking difference in premiums.

Although i have paid upwards of £1000 for insurance in the past, this is due to me picking overpowered cars and was certainly not the cheapest i could have got insurance for. Nowadays at 20 i am finding it quite hard to find anything that comes in at over a grand per year, MR2-Turbo's and celica GT-fours dont manage it, only things like M bmw's and AMG mercedes' seem to really push it up if i shop around. My girlfriend also seems to have gotten away with never paying more than £500 per year for insurance, but i guess womens insurance is another matter entirely.
 
Damn, normally I'm of the opinion that if you can't afford to run a car then you do without but at £3k+ I'd be VERY tempted to drive without insurance :o

That does seem stupidly high though, I'm sure that it can come down from that much, especially on a Ka.
 
And the authorities wonder why so many people drive around uninsured ? It's maybe because by the time they have bought a car, got caught and paid a paltry fine, they are still quids in.

It is ridiculous to pay such a high premium on a car. I accept younger drivers are more of a risk but to have insurance quotes often twice what the car is worth and more is scandalous and bloody unfair.

My first car was a Peugeot 205 1.1 and I bought it in 1997. I paid £469 fully comp and that was high then.

Over 3 grand ? Scandalous, un-neccessary and total greed.
 
I sympothise completely, all i can suggest is pass pluss and elephant and NU. Registering the car at a different adress would cross my mind but this would bring up the possibility of your insurance being void.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Yes it might be more than the car but your insuring the risk not the vehicle.
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I agree with this for performance cars but for the case in point the increase in premium is due to it being a high crime rate area, which in effect only increases the chances of the car being stolen or vandalised. It has little or no bearing on how likely the car is to be crashed. Therefore that being the reason to charge greater than the cost of the car is totaly unreasonable imo.
 
You have to see it from the insurer's POV now though. Everyone is making vastly exaggerated PI claims, I was reading the other day that one crash could cost the insurer or their underwriters upwards of £1,000,000. £3,500 doesn't seem like so much money now, does it :p.

I too was lucky. I paid £2400 at 17 on a 2.0l Mondeo, down to £1200 with Pass Plus, down to £900 with 1 years NCB, up a little when I went to a 3.0l Omega, down to £650 with 2 years NCB and around £500 shortly with 3 years NCB on pretty much any 'normal' car I like. NCB is king - when you haven't got any, you're truly shafted.
 
He has passplus, I have tried the Rapid Scheme from Norwich Union and that came out at £1800 at his current post code, over £3500 in Liverpool.

Admiral who we are he is with as a named driver have offered to make him the named driver and make a note that the car is being stored in Liverpool for an extra £300 until the policy runs out (4 months). Seems the best option so far. Its only temporary as I said before, he could pay £3500 and move back here. Its not as if he would get a refund :mad:

I have had some quite powerful modified cars in the past under my own insurance, yet he is struggling to insure a KA for less than £3500. Crazy world!
 
Von Smallhausen said:
Over 3 grand ? Scandalous, un-neccessary and total greed.
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Justify this comment please - as they dont make THAT much money. The cost of insuring a Ka in Liverpool is £3k becuase there is a VERY high chance it'll get nicked, or crash..
 
Adz said:
You have to see it from the insurer's POV now though. Everyone is making vastly exaggerated PI claims, I was reading the other day that one crash could cost the insurer upwards of £1,000,000. £3,500 doesn't seem like so much money now, does it :p.
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Oh of course, i'm not disputing that as I am sure that everything considered he isn't getting too bad a deal. Liverpool has a reputation of being quite rough in places, he is young, driving under a year with little experience and 0NCB.

Still doesn't make it any easier parting with such a wedge of cash for a service you hope you will never need to use!
 
Adam said:
Oh of course, i'm not disputing that as I am sure that everything considered he isn't getting too bad a deal. Liverpool has a reputation of being quite rough in places, he is young, driving under a year with little experience and 0NCB.

Still doesn't make it any easier parting with such a wedge of cash for a service you hope you will never need to use!
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What I'd do is try to find an insurer who will give him the differerence back when he moves back home. Most will I've found, the same as they'll charge you extra part way through the year if your risk increases. It's not quite such a hit then.
 
For that sort of money, I'd be tempted to sell the KA, buy a ultra cheap 'banger', and insure it TPO.

I have a feeling it won't be the case, but surely the impact that the area has on the quote would be minimised if you weren't going to claim because it'd been nicked.

If the insurance is more than cost of the car, don't insure the car, just insure the 3rd party. If you stack or have nicked 4 or even 5 £500 agw/Malty specials and replace them out of your own pocket, then you'd still be better off than paying £3500 insurance.
 
lordrobs said:
I agree with this for performance cars but for the case in point the increase in premium is due to it being a high crime rate area, which in effect only increases the chances of the car being stolen or vandalised. It has little or no bearing on how likely the car is to be crashed. Therefore that being the reason to charge greater than the cost of the car is totaly unreasonable imo.
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Regardless of the car the risk of him stacking it into a bus shelter, crowd of people or family coming the other way is still high also this compounded by the fact he lives in a bad built up area and the car may well get pinched will push the premium up, if he can't sink the cost don't live in the high insurance place, simple.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Justify this comment please - as they dont make THAT much money. The cost of insuring a Ka in Liverpool is £3k becuase there is a VERY high chance it'll get nicked, or crash..
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Justify ?

I would have thought common sense would answer that question Fox.

How is is acceptable and justifiable for insurance to be worth more than the car ? Unless you are talking about a clapped out banger bought for £200 or similar circumstances. You are obviously going to pay more.

Very high chance of being nicked, bumped or whatever ...... insurance for more than the car is worth is nothing but greed and gross overpricing. The difference being that they can get away with it as young drivers are over a barrel.

Are you suggesting that over 3k is a reasonable deal for such a car Fox ?

I passed my test in 1996, bought my first car in 1997. I also got my first car at a time when car thefts were more popular than they are now. Granted there are still cars taken and a lot of them but the market has fallen out of stolen cars of lesser value now and they are usually nicked to do ' jobs ' in. Larger and more expensive cars are still taken as stolen to order and often shifted out of the country.

Things have not shifted significantly enough to warrant a quote on a Ford Ka that is more than it's worth.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
Justify ?

Things have not shifted significantly enough to warrant a quote on a Ford Ka that is more than it's worth.
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But your forgetting its not just about what the car is worth if its stolen, what happens if this young inexperienced driver crashes into someone driving a nice new BMW or other expensive car, the cost to the insurance company is going to be much higher than the £3k premium they paid.
 
Mr Man said:
But your forgetting its not just about what the car is worth if its stolen, what happens if this young inexperienced driver crashes into someone driving a nice new BMW or other expensive car, the cost to the insurance company is going to be much higher than the £3k premium they paid.
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^^ this is what I was going to say ;)
 
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My GTi is insured under a liverpool postcode, when i was 19 i was only paying just over a grand for a group 14 car.

try elephant and admiral, with 2 older experienced woman drivers.
 
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