Can only afford insurance on crap cars. Solutions on reducing? Memberships?

Lit_Up

I'm 28, successfully self employed, live alone in central London, eat out regularly, can afford most things I want. I passed my driving test first time (PM for recommendation!) but I'm finding that I can only afford insurance on the most mundane group 1 cars. Even that is eyewateringly high at £1387 to insure a Fiat Panda...but on a Mini that goes up to 2000 and above.

I'm not a teenager and I can afford a nice car befitting my age and demographic, so I don't want to be limited to crap drives. Is there any legal trick I can use to get the insurance down - for example, membership of a union or owner's club, that would get me a more sensible quote? Would a smaller broker be better than these large firms?

Nilrem

IIRC both Panda's and Mini's are fairly high risk (for different reasons).

Have you looked at things like Mondeo's?

Unfortunately until you've got some history with insurance the insurers can only really go on your driving history (none), your location (Central London is often expensive for risk reasons), and the type of vehicle you're aiming to drive.

I seem to recall that less well known vehicles are often cheaper to insure for new drivers due to them often being involved in less crashes when driven by new drivers (so whilst Panda's, Corsa's, Nova's, Mini's are fairly common for new drivers a Volvo might be cheaper to insure despite being a higher value car).
I vaguely remember one of my friends getting much cheaper insurance on a fairly high end vehicle than he would have on most of the normal "starter" cars as it was an unusual first car and not overly performance (I can't remember if it was a BMW or something but it was a fairly expensive car).

Most of the "tricks" probably won't help massively if you're driving regularly/any distance (rules out a lot of classic car policies), although if you can try a few proper brokers they can often do more comprehensive checks than an online broker and will likely have a good idea as to what the different insurers are looking for to lower their risk (and your premium).

Bennifred

Putting one (or both!) of your parents as an additional driver (they don't have to actually drive it :cool:) can reduce the premium considerably, in our experience.

Lit_Up

Bennifred wrote: »

Putting one (or both!) of your parents as an additional driver (they don't have to actually drive it :cool:) can reduce the premium considerably, in our experience.

Parents are not resident at my address and cannot drive.

Lit_Up

Nilrem wrote: »

IIRC both Panda's and Mini's are fairly high risk (for different reasons).

Have you looked at things like Mondeo's?

Unfortunately until you've got some history with insurance the insurers can only really go on your driving history (none), your location (Central London is often expensive for risk reasons), and the type of vehicle you're aiming to drive.

I seem to recall that less well known vehicles are often cheaper to insure for new drivers due to them often being involved in less crashes when driven by new drivers (so whilst Panda's, Corsa's, Nova's, Mini's are fairly common for new drivers a Volvo might be cheaper to insure despite being a higher value car).
I vaguely remember one of my friends getting much cheaper insurance on a fairly high end vehicle than he would have on most of the normal "starter" cars as it was an unusual first car and not overly performance (I can't remember if it was a BMW or something but it was a fairly expensive car).

Most of the "tricks" probably won't help massively if you're driving regularly/any distance (rules out a lot of classic car policies), although if you can try a few proper brokers they can often do more comprehensive checks than an online broker and will likely have a good idea as to what the different insurers are looking for to lower their risk (and your premium).

Thanks. My information regarding cheapest cars to insure are actually the "group 1" category as listed on Parker's.

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/insurance/car-insurance-groups/?ig=1

So unless that category only tells part of the story, it looks like I'm stuck.

Lit_Up

I will add that the Metropolitan Police has mapped my immediate area as being "low or no car theft". But insurers probably don't even take that into account, just lumping London together as the same thing.

dacouch

Have you priced up using a Street Car or similar instead of owning a car?

Bennifred

Lit_Up wrote: »

Parents are not resident at my address and cannot drive.

Pity! But in case the information is useful to anyone else: the additional drivers do not have to reside at your address.

Lit_Up

dacouch wrote: »

Have you priced up using a Street Car or similar instead of owning a car?

Cannot rent until license held for 1 year

nash1977

Living in central London, being self-employed and living alone will bump up your premium significantly.

I would stick with group 1 cars, rather than throw money away.

Quentin

Add any mature experienced driver as a named driver (female is best) with a clean licence and claim free record.

(No need for them to be related, or ever to drive it!)