17 yr old. Will he ever drive?

Jake'sGran

There is another thread on car insurance but I wondered if anyone knew how we can get insurance for a great grandson, Jake.

Two years ago the insurance for his 17 year old brother in a £900 Ford Fiesta 1400cc was £2400 and he has been driving happily since then. He is now 19 and has now got a new Renault.

The Fiesta was being kept for Jake but now
the best insurance quote is £5000 - the Co-op quoted £12,000. I'm aware that young drivers have the most accidents and many are not insured etc etc but with these prices how does a young person ever get to drive unless they are the son of a footballer:mad:

He wants to be a Professor of Mathematics and has just got A levels (A grade) in Maths and Higher Maths + other subjects. At 14 he broke a UK weight-lifting record. These things are irrelevant I know but I am so sorry for him.

Can anyone suggest anything? He could do the extra test (forgot the name) but it would not reduce these prices much.

x.x.x.

have you tried adding an older relative as a second driver? can make a very big difference

vaio

From another thread......

vaio wrote: »

.....As an apprentice back in 1974 my insurance for a GT Cortina was £40 which was about two weeks wages.

Four or five years ago our apprentice was paying £1500 to insure a Rover 25, this was about three months wages and, looking at the figures people are posting for current quotes, an apprentice now would be working for maybe six months just to pay his insurance.

Fast approaching (if not there already) the stage where only kids with rich parents will be able to insure cars

As for young Jake, all you can legally do is follow the insurance method on the main site and play about with various permutations of cover, excess, additional drivers etc until you find something sensible (although I think you might struggle with a 1.4 car).

Another option is to add another car to an older drivers policy and insure Jake as an additional driver for a few years but obviously this will only be possible if the older driver uses the car more than Jake (otherwise it's fronting for which the punishment is hanging or deportation to Australia)

Quote

He could always wait until he's 25.

dacouch

He does sound like a great grandson, hope you get a reasonable premium

daveyjp

Bottom line is if you can't afford something you can't have it and 'Quote' advice may not be a bad idea. Leave getting a car until he NEEDS one, rather than wants one.

I passed at 17, drove my parent's car for 6 months, went to Uni without a car, got my first job and survived on buses and trains for two years. By my mid 20s I wanted a car - first car cost me £250, insurance was £400.

huckster

Until we are out of this financial mess, a lot of different aspects of life will have to be postponed until later in life. I understand the current average age for buying a first starter home now stands at 33 (38 according to some). There are currently in excess of 250,000 pensioners with unpaid mortgages and this is set to massively increase over the years to come. No chance for most parents to help out their kids with a deposit, as they need their incomes to pay for the mortgages and increasing bills.

From memory my first Insurance was roughly 10% of my first annual salary. If circa £3k (my guess) is the average premium for a teenage driver, this is a much larger percentage of any salary they might obtain. If I were in this position, I wouldn't bother, as with all the other motoring costs, this would be totally unaffordable.

Suggest that the OP's grandson gets a bicyle if he needs to commute to work and gets fit at the same time.

mikey72

Yes it's great advice.
Wait another half lifetime until he's 25.
I just hope that's not the advice that gets given to pensioners when the government can't afford to pay anymore. Just wait another half lifetime. Great to get your pension at 97.
Would save a lot of money though.

bouncydog1

Unfortunately that's just the way things are at present. Young male drivers who have just passed their tests have the most accidents - and as insurance is a pool everyone who is in that age/sex pool is penalised.

Can't offer a lot of help except to look at all the other threads on insurance for 17 year olds. Other thing to think of though, is does he really need a car and can he afford to run it. If you think of the cost of buying and insuring the car, petrol, mot, servicing, tax etc. etc. if he is going to Uni he should wait. Presumably he is going next September?

Really doesn't need a car if he is living on campus. If he is desperate to get a car the first thing he should do is sell the 1400 cc and get a low group (see Parkers for info), add an older driver as long as that driver is accident and claim free - mum/dad/both. Try speaking to a broker as they will have access to Companies not accessible via the internet.

BigCraigJohn

Definately try putting an experienced driver on the policy, even at 28 I was gettin 15% knocked off for having my dad on board. I imagine though this would be much more with a younger driver.

Lirin

Try adding parents to his quote, telephoning (I usually get cheaper quotes than online), possibly restricting mileage, going third party (still works out a lot cheaper in some cases), paying in full rather than monthly installments, taking a higher excess....

My first insurance was £874, that's more than I pay for three cars now.