Need a cheap-to-insure family car

michpotts

Hi there! long term lurker here.

I am shocked at the cost of car insurance at the moment! I'm paying £560 a year for 3rd party F&T for a 14 year old 1.4l Corsa at the moment. I'm 30 and passed my test just over a year ago.

Said Corsa has given up the ghost and is a bit small for us (three kids and hubbie). Looked at the insurance for another Corsa (1.2l this time) and the insurance would shoot up to £612!!! for the year. I've tried price comparison sites and the cheapest price there was £680.

So if a Corsa costs that much I dread to think how much it would be for anything bigger.

So basically I'm looking for a magic car that you can fit 3 kids, a pushchair, a weekend bag, me and a bloke in, that doesn't cost a mint to insure. Most of the time I'm just driving myself to work and dropping the kids off at the childminders and the Corsa is perfectly adequate for this. But sometimes it might be nice to go off somewhere for the weekend all 5 of us. But would it be worth the expense?

Anyone suggest any cars I should be looking at?

Wkdwill

Our 51 plate Scenic 1.4, costs us £570 a year Fully Comp, this is for DH who is 27 and has been driving for just over 2 years.

Thats with Hastings, oh and we got £55 cashback too.

forgotmyname

Its mad but sometimes fully comp can be cheaper.

Most car makes have online clubs, They usually have an insurer who give discounts to
members.

Diesel cars & estate cars tend to bump the prices up also.

mikey72

It gets better with age. My 1.8 Zafira is less than £200 fully comp with business use.

verityboo

Whats your budget?

Newer cars can be a lot less to insure as they have better security and are easier to repair. When I swopped from a 12 year old car to a new one worth 10 times more my insurance premium halved

Rolandtheroadie

mikey72 wrote: »

It gets better with age. My 1.8 Zafira is less than £200 fully comp with business use.

Yep, the wifes £300 fc for a 2.5 voyager with business use too.

To the op, try some different cars in the comparison i'e a focus, astra, even mondeo/vectra

michpotts

Thanks for your replies. It's reassuring to know that the pain of high premiums lessens with time- rather naively I thought that turning 30 would magically half them or something!

Also I wrongly assumed that having a newer car would increase the premiums because it would be worth more.

In terms of budget I only have about £1500 to spend (plus what I get for my clapped out Corsa which is at £200 on ebay at the moment). May think about getting a small loan (say £1000-1200) to top it up but am reluctant to do this until I know how the economy/our jobs situations will pan out.

Lithian

Try actually running a quote for a family car, vectra/mondeo type thing. Despite these cars having a bigger engine and being a higher insurance group its the kind of car that a sensible person drives, a sensible person who dosn't crash.
If the insurance companies think that 1.2 corsas are likely to crash then they will be more expensive to insure than you'd think, and given that a 1.2 corsa is often a 17 year olds first car then there may be some merit to jacking up the price.

Try putting something like a 2001 mondeo 1.8 LX valued at £1500 into a comparison site and see what sort of quotes its giving you. Even if it is the same sort of price at least you'll have a more comfortable and safer car for your family.

Oh, and forgotmyname makes a great point, try getting fully comp quotes as well.

michpotts

1.8l mondeo came to £1000! :eek:

property.advert

Depends where you live. Where I currently live any motor comes in around £1500 and yet if I go to where I am hopefully moving to, it will fall to around £600. Variations on the theme for any motor with similar percentage differences.

michpotts

That makes sense- I do live in quite a crime-riddled area. Where I park it during the day when I'm at work is even worse!

I've been looking at a Vauxhall Meriva- looks like it fits the bill in terms of insurance (if I go for the 1.6l 8v model) and it looks nice and roomy without looking like its going to hog the whole road. Only trouble is they only started from 2003 and the cheapest I can get is £3000 (from a local dealer who has come highly recommended). Am so tempted to stretch ourselves and get it.