Insurance for new driver

misterthrifty

Hi

My 18 year old son has just passed his driving test (1st attempt :beer:) and is keen to get his 1st car. Despite looking for a cheap and low group older car, the insurance is still prohibitive. Any suggestions for the cheapest way to arrange it, he would prefer insurance in his own name to build a record.

TIA

Mr T

pompeyrich

No really cheap way, will be lucky to get it for under £1,000 for a 1.0L. ecarinsurance were best for my lad same circs as yours, £1,040 TPF&T for a 1.0L Corsa, £20 a week, £3 a day so not too bad I suppose. After a year it dropped to £650 but got FC from More Than for £700.

Ecar gives a good discount for Pass Plus, the discount will cover the cost of the course and obviously the instruction should help him too.

terryya

Best thing to do is probably to use the MSE insurance guide on here. Then also make sure you check out the cashback sites such as Quidco.

Martin's car insurance guide.

anewman

Having insurance in anything other than his name is technically illegal anyway.

Try https://www.ecarinsurance.co.uk directly (they were cheapest for me, and for some reason quotes via confused.com are much more than directly from the site, which confuses me). If the problem is paying it all at once, they also have a pay as you go option where you pay monthly and get 1 year no claims after 8 months i think (but it still usually works out cheaper to pay for the whole year if you can). Also go through the usual comparison sites like confused.com etc etc.

Try adding parents as additional named drivers as this can sometimes bring the cost down. Even if they'll never touch the car.

Also, do not forget to try third party fire theft, as well as third party only, as I found TPFT to be cheaper than TPO for some reason. No point paying more for less cover.

You can get some decent cars for under £800 so if you were thinking of paying more for a car I would start to consider this price group. Put together a list of possible cars that are likely to be cheap on insurance and go through them individually editing the insurance quotes to see how changing the car affects the quote. It may be a good idea to avoid the usual boy racer cars like the corsa and saxo. He might have no street cred, but it's better than walking

anewman

terryya wrote: »

Best thing to do is probably to use the MSE insurance guide on here. Then also make sure you check out the cashback sites such as Quidco.

Martin's car insurance guide.

Cashback is only worthwhile considering when your insurance costs you about £300 IMO. £50 cash back from one insurer that charges £2,000 is neither here nor there if you can get insurance for £1,500 somewhere else.

terryya

anewman wrote: »

Cashback is only worthwhile considering when your insurance costs you about £300 IMO. £50 cash back from one insurer that charges £2,000 is neither here nor there if you can get insurance for £1,500 somewhere else.

What I was saying is once you have found the cheapest quotes then find out if you can get any extra back.

Nobody in their right mind would pay an extra £500 for £50 cashback but, for example, this year the company who gave the cheapest quote offered £90 via quidco so I'd have been mad not to get it. That logic stands if it is £300 or £3000

anewman

terryya wrote: »

What I was saying is once you have found the cheapest quotes then find out if you can get any extra back.

Nobody in their right mind would pay an extra £500 for £50 cashback but, for example, this year the company who gave the cheapest quote offered £90 via quidco so I'd have been mad not to get it. That logic stands if it is £300 or £3000

Guess what I was trying to say (rather badly) was that where insurance costs more cashback is less likely to make you to go for one insurer over another.

Forgot to mention pass plus. Think it costs about £300 to do and some insurers offer a discount for two years after getting pass plus. I also believe some councils contribute to pass plus costs. So if money saved on insurance is likely to be more than cost of pass plus it's worthwhile doing.

kitchpoo

from being involved with Norwich onion (or aviva group as now is), and my dad working for various insurance companies over the last 25 years, I have some insight in to how the 'system' works.

Each insurance company keeps tabs on claims made in the past 5 years by postcode area, so if unfortunately everyone insured with Norwich Union near you had a theft from car this would increase your premium. So for some people what can seem like identical circumstances can lead to varying quotes. Sometimes a small company - such as A Flux, or broker might not have many cars registered with themselves in your area and if 1 or 2 cars out of 6 or 7 in your postcode area had a claim - then this too can artificially inflate your risk category.

Further to this, insurance companies will make a loss in the first year hoping for the lazy few not to notice the hike or shop around at renewal time. Again NU Direct is doing this at the moment, Aviva has bought RAC , so they throw in breakdown cover at rediculously low prices.

What can you do to lower your premium.....

Where possible garage the vehicle, add people to the policy who are low risk - adding your parents, spouse or anyone older than you can help. Registering the car at another address - a low risk area (not 100% legal but if its a showcar that you can keep in your parents garage your are OK), lower the annual mileage - assuming that you do below 12k a year, and consider the possibility of paying for the insurance in one lump sum - as often the interest charged on the 'loan' is excessive. Another point to be aware of is if you are paying for insurance monthly - technically you are not paying month at a time - and you could be forced to pay the remaining amount until the end of the policy upon a write off or selling the vehicle!

xcat_girlx

i got mine with swinton.

didnt go with ecar as i read bad reviews about them not paying out.

adding my dad to the policy as the 2nd driver knocked around £500 off!

Yorkshire-Lady_3

Quinn Direct has been consistently cheaper for both my 18 yr old son and my 23 yr old son in law who only passed in June.

Chipmunk27

Has your son taken Pass Plus? It always used to be another 6 hours with an indstructor, and covers motorway and night driving amongst other things, a lot of insurers will then offer about the equivalent of a years NCD.
Also, sometimes adding a parent as a named driver can bring the cost down.