Young drivers insurance

[Piff]

Number 2 son looking to buy his first car having been a named driver on older brothers policy for the last year.
He will be 19 by the time the policy starts.
Been out this afternoon with him looking at a few "low insurance group" cars and returned home to compare insurance costs.

Using the same personal details as before - he has been comparing prices over the last couple of weeks - today, prices have dropped by about 10%

Hastings coming in with the best price each time.

 

[Rayny]

Young male driver with Nil years NCB - Is the quote Hastings Direct or Hastings Essential?
If it is the latter of the two, check the terms and conditions carefully - any questions feel free to ask me.

 

[BlackC55]

Ray is our inhouse insurance expert

 

[Rayny]

Ray is our inhouse insurance expert

Thanks for that Ollie - Now you will know why I did not make it down to your wonderful sounding GTG today - I had a drink or two last night and was not safe to drive until lunchtime today.

The reason for my reply to piff was that I know a few things about Hastings Insurance policies and did not want to see his son getting hit with high excesses or cancellation rates.

Ollie - I look forward to a ride in the c43/55 on 26th May - now you have had your day, please spend some of the evening with Emma and family

 

[Piff]

Young male driver with Nil years NCB - Is the quote Hastings Direct or Hastings Essential?
If it is the latter of the two, check the terms and conditions carefully - any questions feel free to ask me.

Hastings Direct - what should we be looking for?

 

[Piff]

Well, just before getting his new car, number 2 son checked the prices in moneysupermarket.com and found an error. A box for female had been ticked.
Changed the tick to male and the price went up from £795 to £1160

So more searching followed. As 3 cars in the household are due for insurance renewal within a few weeks of each other, tried Admiral multi car.

SWMBO - Volvo C30 - full protected NCD - me as named driver - business use, £260 (up from £190 we could have got with Direct Line, but does include many extras like legal assistance, continental use, etc)

No 1 son - Citroen C2 - 1 year NCD - driving for 3 years - me & SWMBO as named drivers, £445 (down from £650 on comparison sites)

No 2 son - Skoda Fabia - 0 NCD (but 1 year named driver on brothers policy taken into account) - driving for 1 year - me & SWMBO as named drivers, £950.

All fully comprehensive with legal, continental use, etc.

A lot of £'s to hand over to an insurance company, but about the same as we paid last year for 2 cars!

 

[Rayny]

Thanks for the update

 

[Deleted member 37751]

My younger brother who is 22 has just passed his test and to insure him on a 1995 Mazda 121, which is in effect a Fiesta, the cheapest insurance we found him was £3110!

I've ran out of ideas how to get the price down, do you or anyone else have any suggestions?

 

[Rayny]

Have you looked at car purchase and insurance from Young Marmalade ?
Young Marmalade

Or a lot of browsing of
2Pass.co.uk • Index page
may yield some help

 

[Piff]

We found newer cars cheaper to insure.
I guessed that they have more safety features, better security and cheaper to repair.

We also found that adding a mature claim free female person as a named driver significantly reduces the price

 

[Shilts]

Try bell. Part of admiral group saved me a lot of money!

 

[Welfoc]

We looked for cover for our 17 year old and in the end had to put him as a named driver on a policy in my wife's name (they share the car) through Coverbox which still cost me £1500 on a 1999 £500 1.2 litre Punto.

He is 18 at Christmas and will be buying a car which we want to insure in his own name. He ideally wants a 2005 / 2006 VW Polo but god only knows how much the insurance will be.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

After doing a bit of digging it seems that the less passengers you can carry and the newer the vehicle, the lower the premium.

My 22 year old little brother has just insured himself on a 2003 Astravan 1.7 DTi, fully comprehensive, just passed his test so he has doesn't have any NCD and it's cost £1400 which I think is fantastic.
When he spoke to the insurer about the reason why such a big difference, he said that because of the whiplash claim culture they know that his van will only ever be able to carry 2 people, thus reducing the risk of a payout.

 

[Igurisu]

We looked for cover for our 17 year old and in the end had to put him as a named driver on a policy in my wife's name (they share the car) through Coverbox which still cost me £1500 on a 1999 £500 1.2 litre Punto.

He is 18 at Christmas and will be buying a car which we want to insure in his own name. He ideally wants a 2005 / 2006 VW Polo but god only knows how much the insurance will be.

Had the same problems with my eldest son's first car last year. He was 20 at the time, he also wanted a Polo. In the end we/he got an older Skoda Fabia (Vw Polo shared platform), the 1.4mpi is group 1 insurance and was significantly lower than a 1.0lt fiesta/corsa/clio/micra. Not sure why this is but it worked very well for him. Into the bargain he has a car with decent interior space, a bit of grunt for motorway driving and good reliability and quality.

 

[Tiff]

Just came across this thread, which is rather topical to whats been going on in Tiff Towers the last few days.

Following a discussion the other day with a customer whose old Mini I got through an MOT for their son,who is 18 I started thinking about our cars and my daughter who is 17 in January. We have downsized considerably as the insurance and fuel costs are swallowing up far too much of our budget, so we now have a wee old 1.0 Suzuki Swift, and I collect my Seicento Sporting on Friday. My wife has always been a named driver on my policies, so has zero no claims. Her insurance,in her own name for the Swift is 280 a year fully comp, with me as a named driver. Add a 17 year old female and it goes up to well over a grand. This got me curious so I played around on confused.com for a bit.

Very interesting it was too!!!

Daughter on her own policy for the Swift. 1600 quid. TPF+T
Daughter on a Fiat X1/9 2 seater targa, fully comp. 1450 quid.
Daughter on an old shape Fiat Panda 1000cc. 600 quid fully comp!

all at 17, driving less than a month...parked in a car park, but in a safe postcode.

Good to see a young un driving a mid engined sports car with very twitchy handling and crap brakes is a better risk than a more modern car with airbags ect. Half that cost for a box on wheels with the structural integrity of a wet cardboard box..

Mad. Just Mad.

 

[Dieselman]

Good to see a young un driving a mid engined sports car with very twitchy handling and crap brakes is a better risk than a more modern car with airbags ect. Half that cost for a box on wheels with the structural integrity of a wet cardboard box..

Mad. Just Mad.

Insurance companies aren't interested in the risk to you, but the risk to others.

Obviously a Swift represents a greater risk of higher value payout, which makes sense as it's a young persons car.

 

[flango]

Try " The Green Insurance Company" in Glasgow, 17 year old daughter Audi A3 1.6 £1350 fully comp, car written off (not her fault) claimed paid out within 3 weeks. Second car on Policy Suzuki Ignis got £20 refund as lower insurance group, 2 months later car written off taken out by foreign lorry driver ( again not her fault), paid out with 4 weeks and I retained salvage rights for £125. Car replaced with Fiat Punto 1.2 ELX premium dropped again and another £35 cheque back. Can't fault them and very easy to deal with.

 

[Tiff]

Try " The Green Insurance Company" in Glasgow, 17 year old daughter Audi A3 1.6 £1350 fully comp, car written off (not her fault) claimed paid out within 3 weeks. Second car on Policy Suzuki Ignis got £20 refund as lower insurance group, 2 months later car written off taken out by foreign lorry driver ( again not her fault), paid out with 4 weeks and I retained salvage rights for £125. Car replaced with Fiat Punto 1.2 ELX premium dropped again and another £35 cheque back. Can't fault them and very easy to deal with.

Thats who the Swift is insured with now.Still can't see how others are more at risk from a 3 cyl Suzuki than a oversteery 2 seater which doesn't stop too well in the wet.

 

[Dieselman]

Still can't see how others are more at risk from a 3 cyl Suzuki than a oversteery 2 seater which doesn't stop too well in the wet.

Young idiots drive Swifts and crash a lot, so the premium reflect that.

 

[flango]

Thats who the Swift is insured with now.Still can't see how others are more at risk from a 3 cyl Suzuki than a oversteery 2 seater which doesn't stop too well in the wet.

That's easy the Suzuki Swift has the reputation as one of the UK's most crashed cars thanks to it's poor handling and steering, the stats show it as a liability to Insurance companies. The X19 on the other hand in it's day was relatively good had a good handling record and I suspect claims were low which is probably the comparison the insurance company were making. You would have to be a very poor driver to get out of shape in an X19 nothing wrong with the braking IIRC more the choice of tyres on the car some of which (firestone) dramatically increased stopping distances.

I deliberately stayed away from the swift for the above reasons