Young Drivers' Car Insurance Discussion

wazza99

We we're shopping for car insurance quotes for my 23 year old son yesterday and noticed these two kept topping the low price stakes on most comparison sites, the main results screen was showing an excess of around £400 (quite normal) but its not until you hit more and scroll down to further excess's they add, in our case £550 extra specific driver excess, total up to £950 now.

Never seen that before on previous years or policies, next closest policies we're about £65 more, just seemed to me a little sneaky to get to the top of the table, the headline excess not being the true excess.

GT60

After spending time doing quote and twerking them and then following the aviva link my sons insurance for a provisional licence started at £3500 with a £350 excess on the compassion sites and on Aviva it was £2700 just for him to drive.
Then doing re-quotes over the following months due to having to repair the car following someone vandelising it the price slowly dropped with Aviva.
Someone said that the price will go up when he passes his test so i did a re quote yesterday with him and my friend on the insurance and the price dropped to £1744 so i then re quoted but with him as a provisional licence and the price stayed at £1744 with the excess at £350 including the young drivers £200 excess so today we took out insurance today with a friend as a second driver fully comp 2010 Hyundai Santa FE 2.2 engine.
Yes it is a big car for a young driver but i cannot drive anymore due to an injury and he wanted to use the car instead of buying a car due to him rebuilding the Santa FE plus we have had it since new.
This is my 23 year old son with a provisional licence.
Just thought i would share with you :j

koru

koru wrote: »

Veygo is available for drivers aged 17 or older. And it seems cheaper than Cuvva. But you buy cover via the website, not an app.

Something to watch with Veygo is that they are currently insisting on a minimum 24 hours cover, which for my son would be £25. That's a hell of a lot to pay for a 4 hour trip to the cinema about 5 miles away. This would normally cost about £10. So, I'm going to have to drive there and back, twice, which is annoying.

Their website says:
"Policies purchased between 21st December 2018 and 1st January 2019 must have a minimum duration of 24 hours, unless you purchase in advance before 21st December."

So, I'm not sure if this is a one-off over Christmas, or they arbitrarily require a minimum 24h whenever the whim strikes them.

Colbie

I was wondering if anyone could help? I current have car insurance with Carrot better drivers app, they say even when you are not driving you must still keep the app open at all times so the app can continue running and collecting data. Is this acceptable? As I feel someone shouldn’t no where I am at all times when I am not driving as it is unrelated? Can I do anything about this if it is in the policy documents?

forgotmyname

Yes, use a different insurer. If you don't like their terms take your business elsewhere.

rudekid48

Colbie wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone could help? I current have car insurance with Carrot better drivers app, they say even when you are not driving you must still keep the app open at all times so the app can continue running and collecting data. Is this acceptable? As I feel someone shouldn’t no where I am at all times when I am not driving as it is unrelated? Can I do anything about this if it is in the policy documents?

If you ask them, I'm sure you will find that it only tracks your location when you are actually in the car. Reading the website it uses Bluetooth to connect to the car so I don't think you need to worry.

koru

Just got what seems like a very good quote from Admiral. Cover for £430 in the name of my 20 yr old son, who has had a full licence for 2 years, with three additional drivers: me, my wife and my 17 yr old daughter, who is still learning. This is on a 4 yr old Mazda 2, owned and registered by my wife. No points or claims.

That's an extra £240 compared to cover for just me and my wife.

Interestingly, if I run the same quote excluding my daughter, the premium increases by £20! So, adding a learner driver reduces the premium by £20.

Shopper666

Just changed my son’s young driver insurance from Coop because:
It is very easy to lose driving scores but very difficult to improve scores.
I proved to them that thier speed limit data was inaccurate, when I challenged them on this I was told that “it’s the IP of the tracker people”
I asked coop to justify them setting insurance premium price revisions based on inaccurate speed limit data - they never answered.
Dashboard advice too vague to be accurate enough to improve as it is very difficult to identify incidents that cause mark loss.
I’ve telephoned the customer services number to query a few times and get told “Oh you have to ring someone else” - usually the tracker people.
They will continue to collect driving data after policy ceases unless one requests that they stop (This is in policy wording).
In summary a poor experience with the coop.

Other tracker policies that I’ve had were Marmalade who were pretty good, and Direct Line who were better than Marmalade, but also had their moments. To their credit, when my eldest son wrote his car off and their service was very good. Their biggest problem seems to be the communication between Direct Line’s customer service and their tracker people.

Now we have 4 cars on multi car with Admiral, no trackers, saved £300/ year, but bigger excesses.

Peterrr

Hi - can I ask if make/model of car is important if all else is equal? For example, if its a 1 litre engine and the car is 10 years old and cost £2,000, will insurance cost vary between, say, a Vauxhall Corsa and a Skoda Fabia?
Thanks for any guidance through this minefield!

koru

Peterrr wrote: »

Hi - can I ask if make/model of car is important if all else is equal? For example, if its a 1 litre engine and the car is 10 years old and cost £2,000, will insurance cost vary between, say, a Vauxhall Corsa and a Skoda Fabia?
Thanks for any guidance through this minefield!

The premium will vary if the cars cost different amounts to repair or the insurer finds that claims arise more frequently on one model than another.

Pure guess, but a Corsa is probably a very common car for a young, newly qualified driver and as such drivers will tend to have more accidents a Corsa might look more risky to an insurer.