Is there any way to get cheaper insurance when I start driving?

petsmad1988

Hello,

I plan to start my driving lessons in August but as I don’t really earn too much from my job I’m worried that I won’t be able to afford to buy/insure and run a car.

Is there anything I can do that will lower the amount I have to pay for my insurance (such as which is the best first car to buy or if different driving instructors will affect my quote?).

(I'm 21 for reference)

King_Nothing

What driving instructor won't make any difference on your quote. Best advice is to just do loads of quotes on different cars and go from there, insurance groups don't give the best indication either, they go off loads of different factors, so just because a car is in a lower group doesn't mean it's going to be any cheaper to insure. Add more experienced named drivers to your policy, my policy is brought down by adding my dad and sister even though they never ever drive my car.

Strider590

One tip is not to automatically go for a small car, insurers attach a premium to cars that are statistically more likely to be in crash, small cars typically own by new drivers are therefore more expensive to insure.

A mid sized family saloon is likely to be cheaper to insure than a tiny hatchback, and because nobody wants bigger cars, they're also a bit cheaper to buy.

I mention it quite a lot, but a friend of mine, his first car was an old Volvo 240 (2.0L) , mine was an Austin Metro (998cc). Back then (1998) my insurance was £650, his was £400. £250 not be sniffed at in 1998, but these days I reckon that difference would equate to well over £1000.

InsideInsurance

Insurers work on statistics. With a large enough population then in theory they should be able to segment the data to be able to uniquely identify the effect of changing a single attribute and nullify the effect of any other.

The reality is when 99% of Citroen Saxo's VTRs are owned by under 25 year old "boy racers" then they cannot separate the car from the age group and so the results get coloured.

As has been suggested, look for a car that is very unpopular with other young drivers and only modest performance and you should be ok on that front.

The other key tip is adding experienced people on to your policy (normally parents) as named drivers. Just make 1,000% sure you know the details of all their accidents/ points of license etc as miss declaring these can invalidate your insurance.

Strider590

I remember recently there was a young lad in the news, he couldn't get car insurance so he bought a tractor and insured it for £50 a year

Cycrow

or ride a bicycle, they are really cheap to insure and its not even compulsory :P

kelevraz

i passed when i was 21, and honestly, there is almost no way to avoid paying lots for your insurance, i mean, you can do the obvious things and lie to your insurance through your teeth about all kinds of various stuff like... where you keep the car, any extra safety equipment like an alarm and tracker.. how often your gonna use it etc. you can even lie about things like how long youve been driving for - there are lots of ways to manipulate your application to get a cheaper quote. however, if you crash, your insurance will instantly be invalid, so be careful.

other than lying, the only way to get cheaper insurance is to buy a car that doesnt cose that much for a 'young' driver to insurance (anything before 25 is a young driver), i think those are things up to insurance group 3/4

in retrospective though, there is no way to get cheaper insurance for new drivers, even driving a banger, in your first year of driving, expect to pay £1000+ for whatever car you have

you can also go with one of those insurers that will put one of those black box's in your car to monitor your driving, ive heard you can get pretty cheap quotes with them, and theyll stay cheap and go cheaper provided you actually drive properly, which i think is things like, how fast you stop, how quick you accelerate, how you take corners etc.

Guest101

Cycrow wrote: »

or ride a bicycle, they are really cheap to insure and its not even compulsory :P

It should be...and registration too

Guest101

kelevraz wrote: »

i passed when i was 21, and honestly, there is almost no way to avoid paying lots for your insurance, i mean, you can do the obvious things and lie to your insurance through your teeth about all kinds of various stuff like... where you keep the car, any extra safety equipment like an alarm and tracker.. how often your gonna use it etc. you can even lie about things like how long youve been driving for - there are lots of ways to manipulate your application to get a cheaper quote. however, if you crash, your insurance will instantly be invalid, so be careful.

other than lying, the only way to get cheaper insurance is to buy a car that doesnt cose that much for a 'young' driver to insurance (anything before 25 is a young driver), i think those are things up to insurance group 3/4

in retrospective though, there is no way to get cheaper insurance for new drivers, even driving a banger, in your first year of driving, expect to pay £1000+ for whatever car you have

you can also go with one of those insurers that will put one of those black box's in your car to monitor your driving, ive heard you can get pretty cheap quotes with them, and theyll stay cheap and go cheaper provided you actually drive properly, which i think is things like, how fast you stop, how quick you accelerate, how you take corners etc.

Never ever take a black box, the next law will be all speeding offences must be reported to the police etc etc etc.

kelevraz

Guest101 wrote: »

Never ever take a black box, the next law will be all speeding offences must be reported to the police etc etc etc.

really?? is this fact, so soon people with black box's will just be reported for going 40 in a 30 at 2am in the morning?

Guest101

kelevraz wrote: »

really?? is this fact, so soon people with black box's will just be reported for going 40 in a 30 at 2am in the morning?

I'm not saying it's going to be the X,Y, Z act of 2013.

But the government will use their 'logic' into making insurers report this. Just like the CIE in 2011.

So not only will it make your insurance go up if your not very careful (it works both ways), but that will be the next step