Young Drivers' Car Insurance Discussion

FreddieFrugal

stevethegreek36 wrote: »

Hi, can anyone give me any advice on how to find the cheapest car insurance for my 17yr daughter. She has just passed her test 4 weeks ago, just bought her a renault clio 1.2 S plate (98-99), tried everywhere and every option, but the cheapest quote is £3200

thank you

Firstly - well done for picking a car in a low insurance group, that would be first tip.

Add other more experienced drivers to the policy. The more people named the less proportional risk because in theory your daughter is sharing the car and may not be driving all the time. Just as long as the people are less of a risk (older, more experienced) but don't add too many people as I found for myself it didn't make much difference and in some cases started to add to the price. Adding my girlfriend to my insurance policy in the second year reduced the price by about £100

Use a higher excess - £500 or more. If anything happens to the car then unless it's serious enough to be over that amount to fix yourself then you're best off not claiming as that would make future insurance more expensive. Be careful though - on one website - admiral I think, I actually received a cheaper quote when I LOWERED my voluntary excess. Maybe that shows confidence and a lower risk...I dunno, probably just a quirk, but best to check anyway.

Have you looked at multicar? add both of your cars on to one policy, could be cheaper could be more expensive.

Other than that there isn't a huge amount to do. I personally would just not drive until I was older if I had had to pay that sort of amount. If I absolutely had to then I'd make sure I bought the cheapest car possible and took the insurance to be the main cost. I didn't start learning til I was 21 and that's when I got my first policy. I just took the bus.

tt_600_rider

I don't think this has been mentioned but you could try increasing the excess and then taking out excess protection insurance which is about £50 per £1000 of excess but beware you cannot claim for anything below the excess amount i:e if your claim is £999 you have to pay it yourself if its £1000 you can claim it may be worth taking this out anyway if you have a large excess.

Nigelp_3

I`d never heard of insuring the excess ! Makes a different t my quotes.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Suewre

My youngest (18 next month) is now starting to learn to drive. When his older brother passed his test and he was looking for insurance I was put on his policy as a second driver and it reduced his costs.

It has now been suggested to me (by dh and son) that if I own the youngest's car and am insured as the main driver with son as a named driver, there are certain policies where you can select who will be doing most of the driving and we can select son as doing most of the driving. I am aware that me as main driver is wrong, and I refused to do that for eldest. But is it still fronting if he is named driver but also named as doing most of the driving? Surely this makes him the main driver? This reduces the insurance from over £2,000 to £900 odd. It seems too easy to me, and I don't want to go ahead with it if it is fronting. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Aretnap

Main driver usually refers to the person who usually drives it so having separate boxes for main driver and usual driver doesn't make much sense... do you men policyholder? So long as you're upfront about the fact that it will usually be your son driving the car you're not fronting. If you own the car there's actually a argument that you should be the policyholder as it's you who'll be looking for the payout if it gets written off. If that brings the premium down... maybe it's because teenagers tend to drive more carefully in their parent's cars than they do in their own ones.

RMGipson

I passed my test last year, and now drive and 2001 reg 800cc Daewoo matiz (in orange!) not the best car going I will admit, but I can insure it! In my first year I paid £781 fully comp with me as the named driver. I put both my parents on my policy as well, my dad has done his advanced drivers test so that may have brought it down a little. I recently had to renew my insurance and was not expecting it to decrease a lot, if any so I was really impressed when I managed to get it down to £506 for my second year, when some of my friends are still paying nearly £2000. Again this was fully comp with me as the named driver.

leo1308

NEVER USE I-KUBE!!! I had them for a year and was crashed into towards the end of my policy when it was due for renewal. I was crashed into by a foreign driver and because they couldn't locate the driver's insurance company because they didn't speak polish, they asked me to try and ring them. WHICH I DID! But the cheek of them to ask me! I cancelled the rest of my policy and went through an independent solicitor to try and get the claim sorted out. THEY ARE THE MOST USELESS INSURANCE COMPANY EVER!!!!!

ladychelle

my son age 18 , full time student has just passed his test and the ony insurance quote from gocompare is for £10,000 this is for a golf gttdi, i.9.with me as a second driver. i want him to have his own policy, anyone point me in a better direction or have any advice or tips

Jamie1989

ladychelle wrote: »

my son age 18 , full time student has just passed his test and the ony insurance quote from gocompare is for £10,000 this is for a golf gttdi, i.9.with me as a second driver. i want him to have his own policy, anyone point me in a better direction or have any advice or tips

Car insurance for young drivers can be a killer! Given that you posted 10 days ago, hopefully you've found a policy you're happy with by now.

If not, have you considered looking into 'black box insurance' for young drivers? In case you're not aware, it's where you're given a tracking device which monitors your driving and adjusts your premiums accordingly. You can get a lower

Drive like a girl are a good place to start (they also offer car insurance for boys), and Tesco bank offer it too. There's some more info in the car insurance section of MSE.

It'll still be quite pricey, but don't worry, with no claims, it should come down considerably next year!

stuartmc_2

My daughter is just about to learn to drive and have bought her a Skoda Fabia. All the comparison sites quote a much lower premium when she is learning than when she has passed her test. It looks like a short term weekly/monthly learners policy would be best value for her until she passes her test but this only covers her.

I am wondering if I could use this for her until she passes her test and insure me separately to drive under my own multicar policy.

Quotes for both of us on the same policy with her as a learner is over £800 for 12 months. Quote for me is less than £150 and for 24 weeks for her is £350.