New driver insurance so mad..

misterbarlow

yeah but the day before her bday was still 3.5k, on her bday it drops to 1500... crazy!!

Awakeatnight

Unfortunately prices only seem to have risen in 2024. Been trying to get reasonable quotes to add son to my Volvo V40 while he's home from university for a month. £285 seems to be the best we can get from Veygo. Adding him as a named driver on my policy with AXA denied and quotes with him on it come to at least £300pm. Someone needs to step in an regulate this market or we'll have a generation of kids with stunted lives not having access to the kind of mobility we had growing up, travelling to work etc. 

DullGreyGuy

Awakeatnight said:

Unfortunately prices only seem to have risen in 2024. Been trying to get reasonable quotes to add son to my Volvo V40 while he's home from university for a month. £285 seems to be the best we can get from Veygo. Adding him as a named driver on my policy with AXA denied and quotes with him on it come to at least £300pm. Someone needs to step in a regulate this market or we'll have a generation of kids with stunted lives not having access to the kind of mobility we had growing up, travelling to work etc. 

You're talking about one of the most regulated markets there is already @Awakeatnight. 

Last year for every £1 of premium motor insurers paid out £1.13 on average which is the 4th year in a row of underwriting losses. 

I was lucky in the mid 90s that my premiums were circa £1,600 but I had friends with much higher premiums. That in todays money would be £3,215 but I could afford to pay it in full but you appear to need credit as you mention per month so add on the 22.33% average APR and it would be £3,932 or £328 per month. So "this generation" has cheaper premiums than we had in the 90s and yet things like cars have gone up vastly more than inflation. 

One of the key reasons why UK insurance is so expensive is because of what people are liable for in the event of a fault accident. For example, you put a bricklayer in a wheelchair and your insurer will have to pay them the net present value of their lost income and pension for the rest of their life, monies to adapt their home(s) to wheelchair living and if its degenerative, then carers for their later life. In many other parts of the world most of these would be partially picked up by the State and partially the non-fault party themselves will just have to suck it up that life bad sometimes. Adopt similar here and you'll get much lower Motor premiums, higher taxes and a group of people suffering hardship because of drunk/careless drivers etc. 

Awakeatnight

 Yes, I do follow your logic, being the same age, I do remember car insurance when I was young as being quite expensive but not as almost unobtainable as it is now. I don't remember insurance companies denying me insurance at all, as seems to be commonplace now.

Saying that, I know the insurance companies are in a bind with the general performance of the markets, more uncertain world, paying out for natural disasters, pension investments and so on, increasingly expensive repairs, and the car side of things is a smaller proportion of their business which used to be profitable but hasn't been recently.

It would be good though if there was more accessible information out there at least for young people on how to lower their risk, what cars to get and so on, how much of a difference taking advanced driving tests would make etc. I also think government should think of driving as almost a right, particularly in rural areas, and perhaps underwrite insurance in some way in extreme circumstances, e.g if it's a choice of getting someone in a job or having them sit at home claiming benefits. 

I think the one bright spot is that driving overall should be getting 'safer', with electric cars, automatic safety systems in cars and so on. Hopefully technology might save us as with so many other things.

voluted

Awakeatnight said:

 Yes, I do follow your logic, being the same age, I do remember car insurance when I was young as being quite expensive but not as almost unobtainable as it is now. I don't remember insurance companies denying me insurance at all, as seems to be commonplace now.

Saying that, I know the insurance companies are in a bind with the general performance of the markets, more uncertain world, paying out for natural disasters, pension investments and so on, increasingly expensive repairs, and the car side of things is a smaller proportion of their business which used to be profitable but hasn't been recently.

It would be good though if there was more accessible information out there at least for young people on how to lower their risk, what cars to get and so on, how much of a difference taking advanced driving tests would make etc. I also think government should think of driving as almost a right, particularly in rural areas, and perhaps underwrite insurance in some way in extreme circumstances, e.g if it's a choice of getting someone in a job or having them sit at home claiming benefits. 

I think the one bright spot is that driving overall should be getting 'safer', with electric cars, automatic safety systems in cars and so on. Hopefully technology might save us as with so many other things.

The government wouldn't be underwriting this though, the taxpayer would, and we're already taxed to the hilt to pay for various things and people I strongly disagree with subsidising, and I'm not alone in that sentiment. I don't think current costs are historically out of whack, so this seems like trying to fix a problem that doesn't; exist.

From my experience with claiming unemployment benefits (although it has been several years) I don't think you're going to get very far saying you can't get a job because you live in a rural area. Their answer to that would probably be to tell you to move closer to where the work is and cut your benefits if you kept claiming you couldn't find work due to transport issues.

Aretnap

Awakeatnight said:

 Yes, I do follow your logic, being the same age, I do remember car insurance when I was young as being quite expensive but not as almost unobtainable as it is now. I don't remember insurance companies denying me insurance at all, as seems to be commonplace now. 

"Back in the day" my dad walked into his insurer's office in the local high street (that in itself carbon-dates the story) and she'd what it would cost to add me as a 17 year old newly qualified driver to the insurance for his Volvo estate. The response was a lot of laughter and no quote. It's certainly always been the case that some insurers will outright refuse to insure young/inexperienced drivers, especially in "interesting" cars.

DullGreyGuy

Awakeatnight said:

 Yes, I do follow your logic, being the same age, I do remember car insurance when I was young as being quite expensive but not as almost unobtainable as it is now. I don't remember insurance companies denying me insurance at all, as seems to be commonplace now. 

No, it was more expensive back then than it is now. If inflation adjusted it was more expensive back then I dont see why it would be unobtainable now? 

Back then I was earning just under £5 an hour which was an ok rate for a part time job and there were perm older members of staff earning less. Adjusted for inflation thats £10 in today's money whereas the company I worked for at the time now pays £12.50/hr.

I certainly also remember having problems getting insurance, my mother tried adding me to her insurance and they simply said no. 

Awakeatnight said:

It would be good though if there was more accessible information out there at least for young people on how to lower their risk, what cars to get and so on, how much of a difference taking advanced driving tests would make etc. I also think government should think of driving as almost a right, particularly in rural areas, and perhaps underwrite insurance in some way in extreme circumstances, e.g if it's a choice of getting someone in a job or having them sit at home claiming benefits. 

I think the one bright spot is that driving overall should be getting 'safer', with electric cars, automatic safety systems in cars and so on. Hopefully technology might save us as with so many other things.

These days young people have this thing called the internet. There is plenty of information on sites like this on how to legitimately lower your premiums. They can do a dummy quote and add an advanced driving qualification to see its impact before ever paying for the course. 

In my day you had a few direct insurers like DirectLine or brokers who you could call for a quote but doing that to do an A/B test is much more faff than a few clicks on a website. Take pity on @Aretnap who had to physically go to the broker to ask such questions, though I suspect they remember the invention of the car too. 


The government is already involved in the insurance market, you have Pool Re and Flood Re as two reinsurance vehicles paid for by insurers taking part but backstopped by HM Treasury, they enable customers to obtain Terrorism and Home Flood insurance at reasonable rates but in principle would cost the tax payer in the event of sustained bad  results. 

In principle they could create a new Rural Re or Poor Kids Re if they wanted to reduce premiums but you'd need to be fairly confident of the public's likely response when they declare they're not going to build a new hospital but instead will help a farmers kid drive his hot hatch around like a lunatic instead for a cheaper price than a city kid.

Driving already has gotten safer. The amount of fatal road accidents per vehicle on the road has dropped massively (maybe not the best example as death is fairly cheap compared to life long injuries) but inflation happens and our appetite for litigation is increasing. As a kid you fell over in the supermarket your parents would tell you off for messing about, now they're off to the solicitors to sue for negligence. 

Awakeatnight

All good points @DullGreyGuy I am with you on nearly all of it. Yes we're a more litigious society, yes fraud is going up, yes the internet is a good thing. Be good to have some facts. Some interesting stuff here: https://www.confused.com/car-insurance/price-index which says "Despite a drop in premiums for most, young drivers continue to battle some of the highest prices for their car insurance. In fact those aged between 17 and 20 are paying more than £2,000, on average. But 17-year-olds are the only age group to be paying more now compared to 12 months ago. Prices for these young drivers increased by £114 (4%) over the past year, meaning they’re now paying £2,727, on average".  But you say the internet is a great thing but blown if I can find a graph showing the average cost of a 17 year olds insurance going back to 1990! 

Awakeatnight

And by the way, my first car in 1993, newly passed 17 year old, was a mini. My insurance, TPFT was £284, which adjusted for inflation would be £597. Just checked and an equivalent car today, a Citroen C1 is about £2200. So, not sure about your figures.

DullGreyGuy

Awakeatnight said:
But you say the internet is a great thing but blown if I can find a graph showing the average cost of a 17 year olds insurance going back to 1990! 

Undoubtedly the ABI would sell you a data package for a few grand for internal uses only. It may however be an age bracket rather than a specific age. If you wanted to post the chart somewhere it would be 5x the price generally. 

I'd assume confused.com are using data from sales via their own site which may skew the results, won't include companies not on them, will be reasonable for the under 50s market could be much more sketchy for the over 80s who are more likely to renew with their existing insurer than shop around. 

According to the owners of this site, MoneySuperMarket, they state average price for 17 year olds is £1,974 so a £800 difference from Confused.com. Compare the Market are cheaper further at £1,848.