First Car - Cheaper Insurance

macman

It's not the car type that (within reason) determines the cost, it's the 3rd party risk. Replacing the car might cost the insurer £10-20k, but paying the medical and lifetime care bills for the hedge fund manager she runs over could run into millions.
Have you looked at a telematics-based policy?
Definitely add yourself to the policy as a named driver as well, whether you intend to drive it or not.

Ebe_Scrooge

scaredofdebt said:

MikeJXE said:

Have you tried insurance companies that are not on the usual list from the like of money supermarket and similar 

Yes, Direct Line wouldn't even quote!

Are there others?

Anecdotally Direct Line don't "like" new/young drivers, though they're pretty good for older and experienced drivers.

MikeJXE said:

Yes many. Aviva, MFU Mutual, Admiral, Zurich and I believe LV. You could also try brokers, they can sometimes get a good deal

LV is certainly one of the ones that's not on the aggregator sites.  Not sure if they "like" new drivers or not, but I actually just switched to them this year as they were a fair bit cheaper than DL who I've been with for quite a few years.

DullGreyGuy

baser999 said:

Honestly I can’t see you getting a price for much under the prices you’ve been quoted - she’s a new driver, only 20. Sadly a harsh reality of driving these days I’m afraid

"these days" @baser999? In 1995 new driver premiums were circa £1,200 so considering inflation massively more expensive than the £1,600 the OP has been quoted.

To the OP... insurers dont use the insurance groups you see advertised which consider repair costs, security and safety features, they use their own grouping which includes another consideration which is their claims experience with different vehicles that may consider to some degree the first three items but also includes what sort of drivers own different cars.

Reality is new and young drivers have more claims and therefore vehicles that they typically own have more claims and so often luke warm hatches are much more expensive to insure than a much more expensive and powerful larger vehicle that a teenager cannot afford and many probably wouldnt want to be seen in. 

Even as a mature and experienced driver insuring a new SL500 was notably cheaper than insuring a Mini Cooper S

GunJack

Agree with the comments above re: look at a less common "young driver" car..... here the comparison sites are your friend for getting quotes on multiple car types. My oldest had a Suzuki Wagon R (same as vauxhall agila) as his first car as it was by far the cheapest to insure by 100s over the corsa/206/fiesta etc cars - the savings were that big they paid to buy the car and tax it for a year.. it took a lot of time changing the car reg on the comparison site but it paid off..

Goudy

The likes of Adrian Flux and Axa give a discount of around 10% for having a dashcam.
You can buy a half decent dashcam for a few quid these days and with a high premium, 10% can be a fair chunk.

As already mentioned, adding an experianced, mature named driver should help.
I add the misses to mine and it drops a few quid.
She adds me to hers and it goes up a few quid.

Insurance companies can be very odd when it comes to risk.
A Fiat 500 will always come out far more expensive than the Fiat Panda which it's based on, even though they have the same engines.
One tends to attact younger drivers, the other more mature drivers and the premiums can be quite different.
(the Panda is actually a good young driver/first car choice)

Ebe_Scrooge

Goudy said:

A Fiat 500 will always come out far more expensive than the Fiat Panda which it's based on, even though they have the same engines.
One tends to attact younger drivers, the other more mature drivers and the premiums can be quite different.
(the Panda is actually a good young driver/first car choice)

In a similar vein, the old chestnut that always used to be quoted was to look at something like a "boring" old Volvo estate.  Even though it's got a much bigger engine than a Mini or a Fiesta or whatever, anecdotally it was cheaper to insure - probably for the same reason you mentioned.

Not sure if it's still true these days, but it's worth looking into.

forgotmyname

I got banned by a comparison site for doing so many quotes but I went through the autotrader and got quotes on almost everthing
within my budget.

A quick call to the comparison site and explained that the price was more important than the vehicle and a real user not a bot soon
got me unbanned.   Unlike a certain website that cannot admit they were wrong.

Fiat 500, Ford KA, Fiat Panda were a lot cheaper but also some oddball cars like classics although not with a proper classic policy
they usually require a 2nd everyday car and full no claims.

VW Up was reasonably cheap but cost of insurance + car was not the best value.   Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol was another odd one which
was strangely cheaper than a Corsa. Diesels tended to cost more to insure.

Cars over 6 to 8 years old sometimes pushed the prices up. So possibly better to spend more on the car to save money.

scaredofdebt

Thanks for the comments so far.

One question I have is regards the insurance where you need a telematics box fitting, which are by far the cheapest quotes (£2-300 cheaper).

If we buy a car and get the insurance, can you drive the car at all before the box is fitted and how is this done?  I was planning on going to look at cars with my daughter and then I could drive it home for her, but obviously it would need insuring.

I know some dealers will deliver and I could get temporary cover at around £20 or so.

Thanks.

chrisw

scaredofdebt said:

Thanks for the comments so far.

One question I have is regards the insurance where you need a telematics box fitting, which are by far the cheapest quotes (£2-300 cheaper).

If we buy a car and get the insurance, can you drive the car at all before the box is fitted and how is this done?  I was planning on going to look at cars with my daughter and then I could drive it home for her, but obviously it would need insuring.

I know some dealers will deliver and I could get temporary cover at around £20 or so.

Thanks.

Yes, your daughter will usually be able to drive the car before the box is fitted. If it's the standard black box, they usually give you around 14 days to arrange for their fitter to come round and fit it. Be aware that if you fail to do this, it's likely the policy will be cancelled which she would have to declare in future and would really hike up the premiums.

The downsides of these black box policies is always the threat of cancellation. If they turn up and the car is modified, eg tinted glass, they will cancel it. They can cancel for excess speeding, excess mileage, harsh braking, driving at the wrong time of day, etc.

They are useful in lowering prices and encouraging safe driving but you always read about alleged inaccurate data being recorded.

My son had one for 2 years without problem but I think he was mightily relieved when he found a similarly priced policy without the black box.