Car insurance frustration for a 17 year old.

Astaroth

The ultimate problem is arguably not even so much their lack of experience but the fact that teenagers like to show off etc. This behaviour frequently leads to accidents and sadly too often to injury claims. These are high cost incidents and require a significant premium to cover the risks.

My ex only passed her test a few months before we got a "sports car" and yet she only added £100 to the premium (though a few insurers wouldn;t insure an inexperienced driver on the car - including my then employers). She being much older however ment that she is going to be more cautious and unlikely to get all her friends piling in drunk on a saturday night (there really isnt room for any prams in the boot)

Whilst I am sure you will say your son is a very sensible young man and so are all his friends the reality is that insurers work on the basis of the law of averages. They differentiate people on a relatively small number of questions. Yes they could add more questions but then people already complain about how long question sets are etc and insurers have to balance getting the premium right for each person against ensuring people dont abandon half way through the quote and now there is the added complication of getting the likes of Confused and the other aggregators to add the additional questions too.

There are some insurers/ brokers who do ask additional questions and can adjust premiums on the basis of the answers (things like if you have a high power car, how long have you owned this class of vehicle) but these tend to be reserved for telephone quotes only as it takes operator judgement.

pompeyrich

Diesel44 wrote: »

Using a 1 litre corsa as a example car, I was getting a quote of £2200 for a 17 year old male. I then changed my son to a girl and got a quote of £1100.
.

Sounds about right, I was getting those sorts of quotes for my son at !8, I had already told him he had to wait til he was 18. Does/did your lad have a scooter? Churchill and others allow any no-claims built up from a "ped" to be used towards car insurance, knocks about 35% off.

Simulacraton

Diesel44 wrote: »

I'm very proud of my son, passing first time ( I took 3 tests to pass ) he only took 7 months from start to pass.
To pass first time and to find you have no advantage on someone who takes 4 or 5 attempts to pass is a bit of a downer.

Of course you are proud of him, I'd be proud too

Time will tell if he is a wise driver. if he is, he can look forward to a claim free history and reap the benefits.

In the meantime, try this: http://www.iam.org.uk/

IAM members are few and far between and the testing is pretty hardcore, but I believe there are insurers who will discount drivers who are members.

Quentin

Simulacraton wrote: »

there are insurers who will discount drivers who are members.

Don't do the IAM just thinking the insurance will be cheaper. They have a deal with a broker to offer a discount, but it's not especially competitive (especially when comparing with the premium cost after taking into account the £80 or thereabouts cashback regularly on offer from the cashback sites).

dogbot

As well as/instead of IAM, you could try a black box policy - coverbox or more than drivetime (i think the latter is still called that?). These 'reward' young drivers who don't drive at the times when most have smashes - weekend nights and friday nights. You can also keep an eye on his driving though their online dashboards. Coverbox also includes theft tracking of a type.

It has been said above, but I will re-iterate, young men are far far more likely to have a smash, and have a biger smashes if they do crash. I see this every week on our major claims reports (or did before I moved departments). Having a crash takes just a split second of bad judgement or lost concentration - even the most cautious driver, sober as a mormon, can be driving some mates back from party, changes a CD, doesn't see the car/bend/fox/tree quite in time and spins it. Either that or a poor moment of showing off.

I was a teenage boy driver not so long ago, and had a fair share or near misses due to idiocy and one smash - fortunatly in a carpark so it was only a low speed one! I recall that in our year at 6th form, about 60 people maybe, 4 of the blokes wrote of their cars in a year, I think all within 8 months of passing their tests - one on the same day! All injured their mates at the same time.

dogbot

Quentin wrote: »

Don't do the IAM just thinking the insurance will be cheaper. They have a deal with a broker to offer a discount, but it's not especially competitive (especially when comparing with the premium cost after taking into account the £80 or thereabouts cashback regularly on offer from the cashback sites).

Lots of insurers offer discounts in their rating for IAM qualification, and that is usualy availible though most open market local brokers.

Quentin

dogbot wrote: »

Lots of insurers offer discounts in their rating for IAM qualification, and that is usualy availible though most open market local brokers.

Yes, but so small a discount it cannot compete with on line plus cashback as already posted. (And often ticking the IAM box and then running the same quote with it unticked produces the same premium????)

dogbot

Fair enough, it may well get swallowed up with all the other discounts/rating factors, but it can make a difference to the right risk. I certainly didn't mean to disagree that cashback, online discounting etc will have a huge impact, just pointing that it may be an option, not just though that one scheme.

As you say Quentin, insurance price shouldn't be the only reason for doing the course.

pastra

Diesel44 wrote: »

This weekend we have been trying to get a good quote for our 17 year old son, who has just past his driving test.
Why do insurance companies not ask questions like,
what score did you obtain on your Theory test ?
What score did you obtain on your hazard perception test ?
Did you pass the your practical driving test first time ?

You would be better asking,

Exam pass marks?
Hobbies?
Number of friends?
what social group at school did he fall into?

Diesel44

pompeyrich wrote: »

Sounds about right, I was getting those sorts of quotes for my son at !8, I had already told him he had to wait til he was 18. Does/did your lad have a scooter? Churchill and others allow any no-claims built up from a "ped" to be used towards car insurance, knocks about 35% off.

No moped, that's interesting, when I changed from motorbike to car several years ago, I had to start again.