Which car to buy for best Insurance rats for an 18 Year Girl

patrickbmccabe

When I go to online Insurance the first question is either the reg or the car type. I am trying to find out what is the most economical car to purchase with that in mind... Obviously a sports car is going to be more expensive than a 3 door hatch back to insure...... so,  Which car do insurance companies think is the safest to buy therefore the least expensive for me to insure?

Luke226

patrickbmccabe said:

When I go to online Insurance the first question is either the reg or the car type. I am trying to find out what is the most economical car to purchase with that in mind... Obviously a sports car is going to be more expensive than a 3 door hatch back to insure...... so,  Which car do insurance companies think is the safest to buy therefore the least expensive for me to insure?

@patrickbmccabe
HI there are a number of policies specifically designed for young and new drivers. Truth is they will all be far higher than any policy premium you would expect to pay but there are some tricks you can use to get a cheaper policy.

Telematic policies are cheaper because they exclude coverage if the driver is not driving reasonably. This does run the risk of not offering cover if the driver is speeding or acting recklessly but they are significantly cheaper than a standard policy. Carrot Insurance is the only one I know off hand but a quick google shows quite a few others.

You said you are looking at cars for her. I would offer this suggestion: buy an old runabout for her. Let her use it for a year and set the voluntary excess to the highest amount the system will allow. If she is driving a car that is so old that it would be a few hundred pounds to replace - she wouldn't have to worry about claiming and so the high excess will never be something that needs to be paid. A driver only pays their excess if they claim for repairs to their own car, if someone else claims against the policy there is no excess to be paid. After a year of driving without a claim she will have a years no claims history and her next policy will be significantly lower. 

That's a fair price to pay for a year of driving in a not so good car I'd say.

Hope this helps

Luke

[Deleted User]

The cheapest cars to ensure are ‘Group 1’ cars. Cars are ranked between 1 and 50 depending on how risky they are to insure. The lower the number, the cheaper the insurance. Group 1 cars include Vauxhall Corsa, Fiat Panda and Ford KA. Hope that helps.

jimbo6977

Small, slow, unfashionable, and cheap to repair are the usual criteria. Panda and Ka seem about right! 

RBN20

I wouldn’t look at the car group really, as this isn’t what the majority of insurers base the premium on. 

As Jimbo6977 mentioned, something like a panda, ka, fabia, jazz, would all be good options. 

Avoid Corsa’s as they are popular with young ‘boy racer’ types so premiums can be higher even though they may be classed as a group 1 like someone previously mentioned 

jimbo6977

Unfortunately anything VAG or Asian tends to be awkward for repair costs, which is a shame as a little Kia or Suzuki ought to be ideal for a new driver. 

Sandtree

GabiB said:

The cheapest cars to ensure are ‘Group 1’ cars. Cars are ranked between 1 and 50 depending on how risky they are to insure. The lower the number, the cheaper the insurance. Group 1 cars include Vauxhall Corsa, Fiat Panda and Ford KA. Hope that helps.

Unfortunately not true at all, insurance groups are based on repair costs and security features but almost no insurers use them for rating. As illustration, my Group 50 car was cheaper for me to insure than a group 18 car I was looking at getting as a very different alternative.

What the grouping system is missing is the "what type of people drive this car" element and that is likely to have a much bigger impact that if the car has an immobiliser or not. 

For the lowest premiums, get something that she and her friends wouldn't be seen dead in. Anything thats going to appeal to a "boy racer" (no matter their actual age) is going to be loaded in premium irrespective of insurance group.

Ditzy_Mitzy

In my experience, although it's been a long time since I was eighteen, it's always been cheaper to insure non high-performance variants of slightly larger family cars than smaller hatchbacks.  My first car was a Nissan Bluebird (with power steering, joy of joys), my second was a Ford Orion (without power steering but quite fast for a teenager), both offered more equipment, space, speed and luxury than the equivalent Fiesta or Corsa, whilst being slightly cheaper to insure; I did check, of course.  Obviously you're not going to find either of those nowadays, unless she really does want a modern 'classic' car, but a Focus or an Astra or a 'whatever Nissan calls the Almera/Sunny type thingy these days' might not be a bad place to start.  Also, as a new driver, I found having a slightly larger car was a real benefit in terms of confidence on the road as other drivers didn't try and bully me.  It was harder to park and manoeuvre, but that's only a small part of driving.  Most of it is driving on roads, at speed and on dual carriageways, where it's nice to be left alone.  I'll take that over the slight simplification to parallel parking which is, really, the very small car's only true benefit.
Annoyingly, however, females no longer get cheaper insurance!  

[Deleted User]

Sandtree said:

GabiB said:

The cheapest cars to ensure are ‘Group 1’ cars. Cars are ranked between 1 and 50 depending on how risky they are to insure. The lower the number, the cheaper the insurance. Group 1 cars include Vauxhall Corsa, Fiat Panda and Ford KA. Hope that helps.

Unfortunately not true at all, insurance groups are based on repair costs and security features but almost no insurers use them for rating. As illustration, my Group 50 car was cheaper for me to insure than a group 18 car I was looking at getting as a very different alternative.

What the grouping system is missing is the "what type of people drive this car" element and that is likely to have a much bigger impact that if the car has an immobiliser or not. 

For the lowest premiums, get something that she and her friends wouldn't be seen dead in. Anything thats going to appeal to a "boy racer" (no matter their actual age) is going to be loaded in premium irrespective of insurance group.

Sorry, I read it in a consumer book I bought a few weeks ago.

A_Lert

As long as you don't buy anything mega performance or luxury the car doesn't make a huge amount of difference. Age, driving history, and location are the big factors.

So you may as well get quotes for the cars you and her have your eye on. Personally I'd be looking at late 00s or newer, the crash safety is significantly worse in early 00s and 90s cars. Japanese brands along with Ford have high reliability on average. A previous poster mentioned repair costs but what my 04 plate Suzuki has needed (new brakes and a bit of suspension work) didn't seem excessive, but then I've not got any real comparison point.

dunstonh

We got my daughter a VW UP to learn to drive in at 18 and the insurance was under £400 a year.    Main reasons were cheap insurance, the better fuel economy that most post 2013 city cars have and £20 a year tax disc.   We also wanted a more modern car for safety reasons.