scary van insurance quote, what should I do?

Amazin

I'm 29 this year but I've only pass my driving test about a month ago. Now Im looking to buy a second hand van. So I phoned this insurance company and they told me it will cost me £4560! However they did mention that it is too high and will get back to me.

I got a another phone call later and they asked me few more question and told me they will phone me back tomorrow to let me know.

The van I'm looking to buy is 2008 with 80000 milage and cost about £4200.

Can someone give me a rough idea of how much it should cost for a new driver like me who never had a car before? I told me that I'm planning to put a water tank into the van at some point.

Johno100

What is your occupation and what do you intend to use the van for?

s_b

try a specialist insurer for window cleaners if thats what you are planning? a quick google brings up quite a few,unless of course you really plan to move gallons of hooch masquerading as water:cool:

forgotmyname

Not an unexpected figure. Check your otther thread you started. Someone mentioned insurance for £800 which did seem rather cheap.

Maybe they tried it with 10 years no claims?

InsideInsurance

Why approach a single insurer and not use an aggregator or a few brokers?

If I do quotes on my car, many will decline due to the value of the vehicle and an inexperience driver. Of those that will quote their quotes go from £600 to £8,000+. To get the best price you need to try as many companies as you can.

londonTiger

multi drop can get expensive. Rightly so - you're always behind schedule so you park on double yellow in a awkward spot which gets you hit, you rush around because you're late and that makes you more likely to make mistakes.

Van insurance starts at 2K ish. Would be very lucky to get anything below that.

Size of van might affect your premium significantly. A transporter type van is going to be high risk they are awkward to drive and park because they're wider than normal vehicles and longer wheel base - as a new driver you're almost guaranteed to misjudge and scrape a few cars with this. I drive zipvan for business and the vans have dents in EVERY panel because people who are used to driving cars drive them occasionally and drive into things.

A shorter caddy/peugeot partner would be a bit more reasonable with insurance.

EssexExile

londonTiger wrote: »

Van insurance starts at 2K ish. Would be very lucky to get anything below that.

In that case I recommend vanlinedirect.co.uk This year's insurance cost me £131.
Admittedly I'm old, the van's old, it's small, private use only, 3rd party only but that doesn't make any difference does it?

londonTiger

EssexExile wrote: »

In that case I recommend vanlinedirect.co.uk This year's insurance cost me £131.
Admittedly I'm old, the van's old, it's small, private use only, 3rd party only but that doesn't make any difference does it?

I think there lies your answer.

I was assuming van insurance with cover to deliver goods for commercial gain.

Herzlos

Amazin wrote: »

I told me that I'm planning to put a water tank into the van at some point.

Is the only reason for the van the water tank?

You might want to investigate if it's cheaper to get a trailer and fit a water tank to that and pull it with a car. Brand new trailer with a 1000kg limit would be ~£1500, and you can presumably get someone to fit a tank for a few hundred. You'd need to check with your insurer about liability for the trailer though

londonTiger

Herzlos wrote: »

Is the only reason for the van the water tank?

You might want to investigate if it's cheaper to get a trailer and fit a water tank to that and pull it with a car. Brand new trailer with a 1000kg limit would be ~£1500, and you can presumably get someone to fit a tank for a few hundred. You'd need to check with your insurer about liability for the trailer though

parking a trailer is a pain in the !!!!, if the OP is doing more than a handful of drops per day it would be extremely difficult to find parking space. It just wouldn't be practical to do this day in day out.

Not to mention that a trailer extends the vehicle's overall length quite some. You'll be very lucky to find suitable on street parking for a trailered vehicle.

Herzlos

It just takes practice. Sure it's not the most convenient thing in the world, particularly in a city but there's no indication the OP is in or working in a city.

Out in the suburbs, one of our window cleaners (a farmers son) did his rounds in a diesel 406 with a tank on a trailer with no problems. But then he had plenty of space and had been reversing with trailers since before he was allowed on the road.