first time car & insurance

roysterer

My son passed his driving test at 17 and has not driven since due to full time education and university.
He is now 21 and will need a car when finishing at uni this summer.
The fact he has held a full driving licence for over 4 years does this benefit him when insuring his first car for the first time?
Would the insurance company assume he has 4 years driving experiance by the fact of his license. Would this enable cheaper insurance cost?
You hear about crazy insurance cost for young drivers who just passed there test.
Thanks
Roysterer

CaptainKidd

The 4 years with a licence means nothing unless he can provide proof of no claims on a car or vehical which he owned or used which in his case he dosent, his age its self might make a slight diffrence but it will still be in the 4 figure mark i would guess, not that i like to advertise for Arnold Clark due to there attitude but they do an insurance thing that they keep quite for some reason where they have a set price for insurence for certain ages when you buy a car from them, this was a few years ago now so dont know if its still running, it was 20 and under was £1200 and £21 and over was £600 as far as i can recall.

MX5huggy

His quote will be cheaper than a newly qualified 17yr old.

cheaper than a newly qualified 21 yr old (by a bit)

but a lot more than a 21yr old with 4 years NCB.

rev_henry

CaptainKidd wrote: »

The 4 years with a licence means nothing unless he can provide proof of no claims on a car or vehical which he owned or used which in his case he dosent, his age its self might make a slight diffrence but it will still be in the 4 figure mark i would guess, not that i like to advertise for Arnold Clark due to there attitude but they do an insurance thing that they keep quite for some reason where they have a set price for insurence for certain ages when you buy a car from them, this was a few years ago now so dont know if its still running, it was 20 and under was £1200 and £21 and over was £600 as far as i can recall.

Erm, yes it does it means he's held a licence for 4 years, and the insurance websites ask the question 'how long have you had a licence' separately to 'how much NCB do you have.' So yes it will probably help him somewhat...

rev_henry

MX5huggy wrote: »

His quote will be cheaper than a newly qualified 17yr old.

cheaper than a newly qualified 21 yr old (by a bit)

but a lot more than a 21yr old with 4 years NCB.

Yes, this was what I was trying to say.

CaptainKidd

rev_henry wrote: »

Erm, yes it does it means he's held a licence for 4 years, and the insurance websites ask the question 'how long have you had a licence' separately to 'how much NCB do you have.' So yes it will probably help him somewhat...

I stand corrected, i was just going on my own assumptions.

I put into an online insurance website and heres what i got

21 and just passed test for a 1 litre corsa fully comp = £2437

21 and passed test 4 years ago for same as above = £821

must admit iam surprised as i didnt think that just having a licence and not driving for 4 years would make that much diffrence.

forgotmyname

My thoughts were they might knock £20 off were wrong then.

Mark_Hewitt

I was in the same situation, passed my test when I was 17 and spent a long while driving my Dad's car and latterly hiring cars whenever I needed them (half a dozen times a year or so). I was 26 when I eventually came to buy my own car, so had been driving - although not frequently for 9 years. But that mattered not one little bit to my insurance, as far as they were concerned I was a 26 year old with no driving experience whatsoever! At least the insurance was still cheaper than if I'd been 17, but it was still pushing £1,000.

I did - kind of - find a way around it, it just so happened that the car I wanted to buy came with a free insurance for a year offer, so that at least got me past the expensive first year and got me a years no claims before I had to start paying for myself.

wuckfit

The best way is to forget all thoughts of having a new(ish) car for the first few years of driving.

It will be significantly cheaper for any young driver to insure an old banger TPF&T (Third Party, Fire and Theft).

The advantage of running a banger is that as an inexperienced driver, there's more chance of having small scrapes and dents, etc. If you scuff a bumper on a 2 year old corsa it's going to cost a few hundred to put right, or an insurance claim, significantly more in the long run. If it's a 9 year old banger, then it's not the end of the world. But if you MUST fix it, the parts should be plentiful (and cheap) at a scrap yard.

BM-AK

Yes it will make a difference. Another tip is to use an insurer like Aviva - who class the number of years he held a provisional license also as the 'number of years a license was held'. So if for example he has had his full license for 4 years and provisonal for 2 years before that, then you can say 6 years to Aviva.

Aviva are the only insurer I know that takes the number of years you had your provisional also into account .

vaio

wuckfit wrote: »

......It will be significantly cheaper for any young driver to insure an old banger TPF&T (Third Party, Fire and Theft).........

My recent experience suggests exactly the opposite as do lots of threads on here