Car insurance 17 year old

Jaco70

My son passed his driving test two weeks ago, and we’re looking to buy him a car, as we did when his brother passed three years ago in identical circumstances.
Both passed on second attempt, five months after they turned 17.
The quotes we are getting for insurance is roughly triple the £1200 we paid for his sibling, three years ago.
I have two questions, 1). Why has such a dramatic increase occurred?, and 2). If we suck it up and pay the huge premium, is it likely to drop in year 2?
Young driver insurance was always a hefty amount, but I can honestly see this leading to an increase in uninsured teenagers. Not my son, but I think it is very likely. 

Mr.Generous

It will probably inch its way down if - and its a big IF - he doesn't have an accident or get any points. I'd really stress to him that if he has even a minor bump, his premium will probably go up by 50 - 100 percent. If he wants to continue driving the only thing he can do is be very careful and safe all the time.

The increase is because most 17 year olds have an accident, and whatever they hit now it always costs big money to fix.

mgfvvc

A possible option is to insure him on another family car to earn no claims and buy him his own car when he has a year's no claims and has turned 18.

Obviously adding him as a named driver won't earn no claims and may be impractical. The Marmalade young driver insurance is an add on policy that earns no claims. 

My insurer would not add my 18 year old to our policy saying that they wouldn't consider it until she had been driving for a year. We insured her on the Marmalade policy for something under £2000 and she is earning no claims. For a 17 year old, I imagine the premium would be higher.

The policy requires a simple black box and a mobile phone.

MidlandsGlory

I have an 19 and 21 year old so know all about the fun of this as I sort everyone's insurance.

Some things can make big differences, its worth playing around with quotes in a comparison site where you can try different scenarios.
Adding both myself and my wife to the policies made a huge difference and we do both drive them occasionally, of course with the kid as the primary drivers still. As much older, long clean licence holders I suppose the insurer thinks the car is less at risk at some times with us driving it.
The biggest hit for my daughter was when she went from occupation 'at school' to a part time job as the insurers consider schoolkids to travel more off peak so less risks. Also my daughters occupations had some room for play, her job involved several roles with no dominant one so we tested all those as occupations.

Unfortunately you may just have to tuff it out for the first year. Sadly the 1st year NCB used to make a huge impact on the following year, but with the current rises, the previous years NCB are getting wiped out and then some.

Oh and when looking for a car, there can be anomalies, again you can run test quotes on a comparison site but the lowest insurance group car isn't always the cheapest to insure, some insurers seem to apply other criteria of their own so don't discount a car a couple of groups higher without testing it, you may get a surprise.

BarelySentientAI

MidlandsGlory said:

I have an 19 and 21 year old so know all about the fun of this as I sort everyone's insurance.

Some things can make big differences, its worth playing around with quotes in a comparison site where you can try different scenarios.
Adding both myself and my wife to the policies made a huge difference and we do both drive them occasionally, of course with the kid as the primary drivers still. As much older, long clean licence holders I suppose the insurer thinks the car is less at risk at some times with us driving it.
The biggest hit for my daughter was when she went from occupation 'at school' to a part time job as the insurers consider schoolkids to travel more off peak so less risks. Also my daughters occupations had some room for play, her job involved several roles with no dominant one so we tested all those as occupations.

Unfortunately you may just have to tuff it out for the first year. Sadly the 1st year NCB used to make a huge impact on the following year, but with the current rises, the previous years NCB are getting wiped out and then some.

Oh and when looking for a car, there can be anomalies, again you can run test quotes on a comparison site but the lowest insurance group car isn't always the cheapest to insure, some insurers seem to apply other criteria of their own so don't discount a car a couple of groups higher without testing it, you may get a surprise.

Insurance group and insurance price have a lot weaker correlation than people expect.  Group isn't a very useful thing to consider.

DavidT67

Jaco70 said:

My son passed his driving test two weeks ago, and we’re looking to buy him a car, as we did when his brother passed three years ago in identical circumstances.
Both passed on second attempt, five months after they turned 17.
The quotes we are getting for insurance is roughly triple the £1200 we paid for his sibling, three years ago.
I have two questions, 1). Why has such a dramatic increase occurred?, and 2). If we suck it up and pay the huge premium, is it likely to drop in year 2?
Young driver insurance was always a hefty amount, but I can honestly see this leading to an increase in uninsured teenagers. Not my son, but I think it is very likely. 

Car insurance costs have gone up across the board for everyone.  Are you looking at blackbox insurance policies? That's typically lowest cost for new, young drivers.

Jaco70

An update on this.
We realised that a huge saving was possible by changing his job description. Not lying about it, but making it sound more trainee managerial, than purely manual. Which it is, but we hadn’t thought it particularly relevant. 

Anyway, he has insurance, and a black box, and the cost was nearer 2000, than the 3500 we were originally looking at.
I can’t help thinking that this kind of discrimination (ie, if you’re an 18 yo labourer you’ll have to pay more than an 18yo bank teller) wouldn’t be acceptable anywhere else.
Imagine if they discriminated on more controversial grounds. There’d be uproar, and rightly so. 

Inbetweeners

Jaco70 said:

An update on this.
We realised that a huge saving was possible by changing his job description. Not lying about it, but making it sound more trainee managerial, than purely manual. Which it is, but we hadn’t thought it particularly relevant. 

Anyway, he has insurance, and a black box, and the cost was nearer 2000, than the 3500 we were originally looking at.
I can’t help thinking that this kind of discrimination (ie, if you’re an 18 yo labourer you’ll have to pay more than an 18yo bank teller) wouldn’t be acceptable anywhere else.
Imagine if they discriminated on more controversial grounds. There’d be uproar, and rightly so. 

It's not discrimination when the statistics show that the typical 18yo labourer has more accidents than his 18yo bank teller counterpart.

BarelySentientAI

Jaco70 said:

An update on this.
We realised that a huge saving was possible by changing his job description. Not lying about it, but making it sound more trainee managerial, than purely manual. Which it is, but we hadn’t thought it particularly relevant. 

Anyway, he has insurance, and a black box, and the cost was nearer 2000, than the 3500 we were originally looking at.
I can’t help thinking that this kind of discrimination (ie, if you’re an 18 yo labourer you’ll have to pay more than an 18yo bank teller) wouldn’t be acceptable anywhere else.
Imagine if they discriminated on more controversial grounds. There’d be uproar, and rightly so. 

Something being 'different' does not make it discrimination.

marcia_

Inbetweeners said:

Jaco70 said:

An update on this.
We realised that a huge saving was possible by changing his job description. Not lying about it, but making it sound more trainee managerial, than purely manual. Which it is, but we hadn’t thought it particularly relevant. 

Anyway, he has insurance, and a black box, and the cost was nearer 2000, than the 3500 we were originally looking at.
I can’t help thinking that this kind of discrimination (ie, if you’re an 18 yo labourer you’ll have to pay more than an 18yo bank teller) wouldn’t be acceptable anywhere else.
Imagine if they discriminated on more controversial grounds. There’d be uproar, and rightly so. 

It's not discrimination when the statistics show that the typical 18yo labourer has more accidents than his 18yo bank teller counterpart.

 You can back this up? 

400ixl

marcia_ said:

Inbetweeners said:

Jaco70 said:

An update on this.
We realised that a huge saving was possible by changing his job description. Not lying about it, but making it sound more trainee managerial, than purely manual. Which it is, but we hadn’t thought it particularly relevant. 

Anyway, he has insurance, and a black box, and the cost was nearer 2000, than the 3500 we were originally looking at.
I can’t help thinking that this kind of discrimination (ie, if you’re an 18 yo labourer you’ll have to pay more than an 18yo bank teller) wouldn’t be acceptable anywhere else.
Imagine if they discriminated on more controversial grounds. There’d be uproar, and rightly so. 

It's not discrimination when the statistics show that the typical 18yo labourer has more accidents than his 18yo bank teller counterpart.

 You can back this up? 

Yes, the insurers have the data which is how they generate the quotes with different rates.

There are a lot of different factors they collect data on in order to understand the risk the individual poses to them. Many factors, could be the time of day they are more likely to be on the road, they are of no fixed work location so often driving to different sites on roads they are not familiar with, are more likely to take risks that a bank teller doesn't (human characteristics).

Another example is to get the quote 4 weeks before required as they have found that those who wait until the last minute are more of a risk taker and this can translate to their driving style.