Young driver car insurance!

shopaholic2

Hello, my 18 year old daughter has passed her driving test :j
For her birthday in September we'd like to get her a car, so I'm looking for some advice.
We've played around on car insurance sites with some ideas of cars and the insurance is coming up at £3.5/4 thousand!! I knew it would be a big cost, but I want to know how other people do it.
Yes we'd have a black box fitted, how quickly do they make a difference?
Is it better to have a cheap car (£300) or a bit more expensive car (£1500)?
Is it better to just go third party?
Is it better to put myself AND my husband on her insurance to try to lower the cost?
Also, can anyone recommend the better insurance companies for young drivers?
I'm going crazy re submitted details over and over again!
Also, not sure if it helps or makes a difference but she is insured to drive my Motability car, so she is gaining more experience since passing her test.

Many thanks.

InsideInsurance

Put your details into Confused.com or equiv and then just look at the couple that dont play on the sites.

In reality its going to be very high as you have 0 NCD on the policy which can represent up to an 80% discount plus its a young driver as the main driver.

As to the car, generally you want something that a teenager wouldnt be seen dead in as vehicles ratings are always impacted by their typical drivers even if on paper they are low performance and cheap to repair. By far the greater claims for young drivers come from third parties so if your car is worth £300 or £30,000 makes minimal difference.

You can get quotes for TPO, TPFT and Comp but most commonly Comp is cheaper due to negative selection and lower competition for the other two.

Adding mature drivers with clean licenses/histories as named drivers is likely to reduce the premium.

Piggywiggy

With insurance cost you will just have to lump it, you might get a slight reduction adding a couple of older drivers to the policy, other than that just play around on the comparison sites to see what car models come up cheaper.

When it comes to buying a banger or something a little more expensive, the main thing is that you would feel safe driving it yourself and it would be reliable, at 18 I was driving around late night and always worried I might break down in the middle of nowhere.

I think a company called Quinn was the cheapest but that was a few years ago now.

Astronaughtwannabe

Insurers aiming themselves at the younger end of the market can also be rapacious with extra charges (mileage, curfews etc.) so look carefully at the terms...what might look like the cheapest can soon become the most expensive.

Insurethebox are a black box insurer and I don't think they are included on the comparison sites. It might just be worth looking for a quote direct from their website?

forgotmyname

Adding myself onto my daughters policy actually increased it, adding my accident prone sister with several claims reduced it slightly.
Adding her grandad added or removed a couple of £ depending on the insurer. Under £5 either way.
Adding her Nan reduced the premium by several hundred £ though.

enjoyyourshoes

Try 'insure the box' and compare with others mentioned above

EdGasket

Cheapest to insure the car yourself and add daughter as a named driver. You do need to be the main driver though if you could arrange that. Depends how often she wants to drive. Does she actually need her own car? My children just used mine until they were well into their 20's and the insurance was cheaper.

Alternatively if you get a policy in her own name then adding a parent or two as named drivers will reduce the cost. Try Elephant; you can get a quote online and play around with the options.

Ref. car cost; not much point paying £300 for a car and £3,000 for insurance is there? You could get something worthwhile in the £600 to £1,000 bracket but £300 is too close to scrap/parts value to get anything reliable.

freerein

Market value of the car is almost irrelevant.

It might be worth talking to one of the insurance companies you have tried to find out why the cost is so high. It could be one simple element that you are missing, like describing her job wrong or adding someone or something that makes the difference.

Tell them you have a budget of £800 to work to and that you will do whatever it takes to get near that budget, whether that means leaving the car somewhere else over night, changing her job, adding or removing a relative. Let them do the work

Hope that helps

nonnatus

I've just been through this with both of my kids!

Cheapest way I found was:

(Car costing around £2k)

Go Fully Comp for Insurance.

Get insurance in your daughters name so she starts earning NCD straight away.

Get insurance that comes with a Black Box because it rewards careful driving!

Add yourself as a named driver (providing you have a fairly clean license and have been driving for a while...?)

Pay in one lump sum, don't opt for installments however tempting they may seem.

Opt for a very high excess (I took £900 excess on both kids policies)

Make sure you opt out of Auto-renew.

Make sure your daughter knows that SHE will be paying for any damage she does to the car and that by driving nicely, she will save herself a fortune in premiums this time next year.

When next year comes ENSURE she shops around and doesn't just renew this policy...

I saved a LOT of money by doing all this. Took a couple of days of research and quotes / comparison sites but I got my 17yr old daughter insured to drive her Vauxhall Corsa for just under £1100.

Good Luck

EdGasket

With those black box things though you can't relax as you get penalised for any slight infringement like going above the new 20mph urban speed limits on some roads, even if only briefly while slowing down for instance. Correct me if I am wrong?

Kathnorm

Playing around with the wording of her job could make a difference. Example, putting cook instead of chef made my sons £460 cheaper. Me declaring non paid charity work knocked £75 off mine. Glass collector instead of bar person also makes a difference. Adding someone who's over 30 onto policy sometimes helps.