Insurance for young drivers

[Red Baron]

Scarily my daughter is 17 in the next few weeks and will be learning to drive, any of you guys had the nightmare of insuring learner/new drivers and have any recommendations on the best cars and companies for low premiums. I know it's going to be silly money whatever I do but would like to know of the pitfalls etc.

Shane

[scottpolestar]

What i found was if you went for the common cars corsa, fiesta etc price was higher were as if you went for uncommon car ie micra,fabia etc price was lower

[thepieman]

We've been through the same mate

You'll be limited to Diamond, Elephant and Admiral mate (all the same?? )

Register with Go-compare and ammend the details for various cars.......

Her first year was insured for a Juke 1.6 and was surprisingly cheap.....
Paige is in to her second year of insurance on a Mini Cooper S, it was only £200 more than insurance on a basic mini one?? but a far superior car...


1. Add a good named driver to the policy
2. Pay the policy in full, installements really up the policy
3. Play about with the miles per year, it was cheaper for 8000/year than 5000/year? for us
4. Go fully comp



As we have found, its a complete lottery....... best advise would be sign up to go-compare (it was the best for us) fill in your details and then ammend quotes to see your options...... go outside of the normal thinking of low powered Corsa, Fiesta etc etc and forget about the old £500 banger being cheaper than a brand new £16k car I remember a £3k 2.0L VW Beetle being cheaper than a £1k Fiesta 1.0L

It all makes no sense at all, even putting the exact same details in on a different day mad a difference to the policy


Personaly, keep away from the 'box' type policys......... I think they are more of a danger than anything else...but think about the 10month bonus accelerator ones, helps get those NCB's quicker for the next year.......

Good luck, its not easy

[Jamina]

I am a young driver and insurance is expensive either way.

Best comparison site for me: confused

Companies that always come out top: diamond/elephant/admiral

As stated I wouldn't use black box I should think you might get caught out if ever a claim were to occur.

To reduce premium I always stick to 6000 miles, two good named drivers over 40 with 10+ years driving and no claims. One make one female seems to help!?

And then of course keep to a sensible car.

Comprehensive Is a must and your voluntary is important to try all combinations of as mine has been cheaper at £150 than £250 in the past.

As stated though it really can be trial and error in the current climate

Hope some of that helps.

[Red Baron]

1.4 1999 Clio £450 while on a provisional, jumps to £1450 once she passes her test and that's with a different company so she'd lose any no claims she may have built up. Need to do a bit more research I think.

[XRS]

Pass Plus really helped my son with his premium (Norwich Union I believe) he had a fairly sizeable refund when he passed it.

NU also gave him an extra year's NCB for getting his Pass Plus.

[Red Baron]

I had a play for an hour at lunch time trying all kinds of small car, I need to have a bit more time adjusting excess, mileage, named drivers etc.

[Pirate1066]

Got my daughter a vw high up,well specced sat nav hands free etc,insured in her name with me an wife named drivers black box fitted £900 fully comp

[XRS]

Looking at insurance for my son's new car, adding either me or my wife increased the premium but adding both of us reduced it quite a bit.

[Red Baron]

Where's our resident insurance expert when you need him?

Gary, help!!!!!!

[thepieman]

He's no help for young drivers mate

I've tried for the past couple of years

[Ginola]

Originally Posted by Red Baron

Where's our resident insurance expert when you need him?

Gary, help!!!!!!

You can of course also buzz W in the day time at work Shane she will be happy to offer advice etc.

[Moley_WRX]

For the younger drivers I have no idea unfortunately.

The cheapest option is with a box in the car, but I can understand why a lot of people would want to avoid that (although I have heard some companies just use the box to monitor mileage rather than how the car is driven, but I'd take that with a pinch of salt)

Admiral are normally pretty competitive, but resist the urge to get a multicar policy.... you don't want your daughter to have a claim and screw up your policy.

There was a loophole a few years back where a car-derived van (ie Corsavan, Astravan) was half the price of a car, but don't think that works anymore

[The Handbrake]

If you already have your own car (nothing sporty) she can borrow when she wants you up teach her then you don't need to touch your own policy. She can take out a learner driver policy with provisional marmalade. Good to use whilst she is learning and doesn't have her own car yet and protects your own no claims bonus whilst she drives as there is no need to add her to your own policy. The policy costs around £85 for 30 days. Handy as you can insure for a month then leave it until the summer and do a block of three months if you like.

As soon as your Daughter passes her test the learner driver policy becomes obsolete and at this point you can buy her a car. This is when it gets expensive but if it's something small like a basic polo then insurance should be better. A few seem to go to Esure. I do the provisional marmalade policy at work but the owner driver, young driver policies are now with niche brokers or direct insurers unless we want to spend loads of money on black box schemes.

[munk]

There was a loophole a few years back where a car-derived van (ie Corsavan, Astravan) was half the price of a car, but don't think that works anymore[/QUOTE]

can you insure a car derived van on a normal car policy then gary?? i tried loads of companys and had to insure as commercial on all of them???

[Red Baron]

Cheers Gary/Wanda.

I knew it was going to be expensive, just wanted to know what can be done to bring it down as far as possible.

Shane

[fish91]

When i atarted it was a nightmare at £2000 for the year. Tip try admiral and add yourself and spouse? On as named driver, you dont need too use your ncb either.

[Pirate1066]

Just toted it up,had her trained by merc Benz world first then on the road and with me,then insurance and then a car about £9000
Ha ha she now wants a track car so doing that together

[iPond]

Originally Posted by XRS

Pass Plus really helped my son with his premium (Norwich Union I believe) he had a fairly sizeable refund when he passed it.

NU also gave him an extra year's NCB for getting his Pass Plus.

Been a while since I had to worry about this but Pass Plus used to make a significant difference, saying you were a member of an owners club seemed to help I think too.

As said above, well worth messing about with the details on a comparison website. I usually ring up a few companies and pit them against each other, can help bring the price down sometimes although this seems to be getting harder to achieve!