Car insurance, students and addresses...

student100

Hmm I don't know if anybody can give an answer to this...

I'm trying to work out whether I can afford to buy a car next academic year - there are various reasons why it would be useful to me. I'm also aware of the drawbacks so I don't need a list of those... at the moment I'm doing this mostly as a paper exercise...


As you may have noticed insurance companies don't seem too fond of young drivers. I will be 20 by the time I might buy this car (and will have held a clean licence for 2 and a half years). The cheapest insurance I have found for my hypothetical car comes out at about £1100 per year*.

However, I was wondering a bit about the address. What with being a student I would be keeping the car at home in Cheshire for approximately half the year and in Bristol for the other half. I have noticed that if I put my home address into the insurance quotes things, they tend to come out with a lower price (say in the region of £100 or so cheaper) than when I put my Bristol address in. Normally I'd use my home address for all correspondance anyway (e.g. my bank accounts, and my driving licence for that matter, are all at my home address).

However as I'd be in Bristol for half the year it wouldn't be strictly true to say the car was kept at my home address...but then equally it wouldn't be true to say it was kept in Bristol the whole year either.

So what address would I put down on the insurance - could putting down my home address cause any problems?


Also incidentally does anyone know what typical annual service/MOT/maintenance costs for a 3-year-old Vauxhall Corsa (or similar) are (or at least a rough figure)? That's about the only thing I've not managed to put a reasonably good cost estimate on yet...


*I've been using a 2002 (52) Vauxhall Corsa Club (3dr, petrol, manual) for comaprison purposes. The cheapest quote I found so far was with Frizzell (the £1100 figure is obtained if you opt for the maximum voluntary excesses of £150 for theft and £250 for accidental damage).

maclean2

Have you tried Endsleigh ? They ask for home and term time addresses so this solves the point you raised and usually they are the cheapest for students.Get an on line indication and then ring them saying you have a cheaper quote with someone else as this should chisel a bit off the price.

student100

I did try them yes, but they only allowed you to enter one address and were quoting about £1350. TBH whenever I have compared Endsleigh insurance for pretty much anything (travel, cars, student posessions...) they never seem to be particularly cheap.

This is without the voluntary excesses that the Frizzell quote included but it's more expensive than Frizzell were quoting without the excess anyway...

pennymakespounds

we went through this last year .... endsleigh were the only people we could find who would accept the 2 address situation.. many companies clearly stating that they would not accept "car at uni" .

fortunately endsleigh were extremely competitive when we compared based just on the home address.

rharper83

I had the same situation when getting my first car insurance. I spoke to endsleigh and they advised me that the address you should put down is where the car spends the 'majority' of it's time. In my case, I spend about 5 months a year at uni, and 7 at home, so I put down the home address. It worked out cheaper this way too. Not sure how valid this advice is, but it's what I was told by endsleigh on the phone.

cpjackso

When I was a student, I lived at home so I cant help with the first point. However I had a part time job which amounted in time to more hours than spent at Uni therefore on car insurnace I classified myself as a part time manual worker and this came out approx. 100 quid per year cheaper. If you do not have a job then obviously you cant do this as with insurance the uberrimae fidae or utmost good faith principle applies - this means that you need to disclose details correctly and if they turn out to be false your insurance could be void with no return of premiums paid.

student100

hmm... I can't imagine every single student driver has insurance with Endsleigh so there must be other companies that don't have a problem with it.

I think the car would spend roughly as much at time at home as it did at uni (it could vary slightly either way) and as I use my home address for everything else I guess I would put that down...I suppose if I do get a car I can call up the company just to check. Although I doubt they could/would really work out that you actually spent 190 days a year uni and 175 days at home (or whatever) and then not pay up...