Car insurance suddenly more expensive than it used to be?

Da_Crojanz

My gf and I are getting a car this week. It’s a fairly modest 2017 1.4 Golf but insurance quotes are coming in a lot more than expected. £800 a year for us both to be insured on it. Admiral and Elephant will do for £600 but only if we pay annually (no option at all to do monthly).

We have both been driving 9+ years, the car is to be parked in a quiet new build estate and neither of us had ever made a car insurance claim. As we’ve not been driving for around 2 years as we lived in a city, we both lack NCB however.

A few years back my former gf got us both insured on a brand new 1.2 mini, for around £400 or half of what we’ve just been quoted today. I didn’t do the admin for it but the only difference I can see is that we maybe had some NCB back then as we were both driving more regularly. The car was parked in an inner city area and we’d both had our licenses less than 10 years at the time.

Does £600-£800 a year sound normal for 2 drivers on a VW Golf 1.4, with 10 years passed, never claimed and both over 30?

The car is to do approx 8-10k miles a year, social only as we commute by train.

custardy

New car is a higher risk. 
Have you checked the insurance rating for your postcode? Ours is surprisingly high due to a nearby sink hole estate.
£800 for 2 drivers with NCD doesnt sound high to me?

RobM99

Shop around! 

AdrianC

So you already know that £600 is eminently possible... but you need the finance...

Where are you looking? Just asking insurers directly, or the comparison sites?

A £600 base premium minus two years NCB (35%) would be around £400, so - yes - it's entirely possible that your lack of NCB is what you're seeing here.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6094792/ncb-percentages

Penelopa.Pitstop

New build estate might be an issue. It's possible there's not enough information for the post cost and risk is based on wider area. I'm pretty sure that's what's affecting cost of my policy. You can't compare prices from a few years back and different area. It might be cheaper to pay annually on credit card and pay off credit card ASAP, rather than paying extra £200 for monthly policy.

Da_Crojanz

Thanks for the replies. We can do annually, it’s just an annoying lump sum.
Would 2 years NCB really cut it by 35%?

Aylesbury_Duck

Doesn't seem particularly high to me, based on your circumstances.  

strawb_shortcake

I always thought Golf's were higher insurance, I'm just about to upgrade to a newer car and I'm looking at an increase of £50-100 but my new car is group 17 and more than treble the value of my last one. 
I've been driving 20 years, one non fault claim but I did have 8 years no claims discount. Which I was told amounted to a 69% reduction I think? So I'd guess your quotes are reasonable.
You can get £35 cashback with quidco at the moment but not much of an offset against £800.

AdrianC

Da_Crojanz said:

Would 2 years NCB really cut it by 35%?

Yes. Look at the thread I linked to - the AA gave me Zurich's percentages with my new policy in January.

One year - 23%
Two years - 35%
Three years - 45%
Four years - 50%
Five years - 51%
...then an extra 1% per year up to...
Nine years - 56%

forgotmyname

Daughters insurance was over £1000 1st year, £750 ish 2nd year and £450 3rd year.

onlyfoolsandparking

Sure I read or heard somewhere recently that Golfs are one of the most stolen cars in this country, could that be a reason for your 'high' quote? Insurers will definitely have this type of info.