Car insurance woes.

[Josh Weston]

I recently started learning to drive, and, as such, am close to taking my test. So, naturally, i've been looking around online to see what I can expect for car insurance if and when I do pass the exam.
The quote was for as follows;
A 2006/'56 reg Ford Fiesta (1.2l petrol, manual, 5 doors)
It shall only be used for around 10,000 miles a year, it is kept in a nice area 24/7 and parked up on a drive at night.
No medical issues, no convictions or anything that may drive up the cost.

Over £5k later, i'm feeling far less optimistic towards this whole driving thing!

As a comparison, I then entered the same details in but swapped myself for my mother. Her quote? - £187.

Eesh.

 

[jamesriley94]

No no no no.

Car insurance things like that put you as the named driver, and owner of the car, meaning it's you - an 18 year old or whatever you are that's gunna be driving it like all the time.

She needs to be the owner of the car and the named driver with you on the insurance and it's much cheaper.

You also probably need to ring as price comparison sites cant handle young drivers very well. Try Aviva. Thats who I've got mine with on a 2010 Ford Ka that had done 500 miles when I got it just before christmas. Our quote was like 3600 for myself, my mum, and 20 year old sister, so taking my mum and sister off, that'll be down to just under 2000ish for myself. It's still expensive though.

Are you 17 or 18 though? It does go down like £500 once you're 18 so if you're close to your birthday you may want to wait a little. I have a mate that's insured on a 2005 Corsa for £1100, and that's the best I've seen. Good luck though!

 

[Josh Weston]

I just tried to put my mum as the main driver + owner, with me as a main driver. It made no difference to the price whatsoever. Although, this is only one price comparison website. When I'm feeling less tired I shall try some more, with some different combinations - see what that gets me.
I am 17 - my birthday is in April, so i'm not going to try the waiting game :/
I remember that they were going to stop being sexist towards young males when compared to young female drivers for insurance, but I don't think that's happened at all. My friend, Abbi, has her car insured completely under her name, fully comp, for £1,200 - she's 17 also.
Once I have the car, so after I pass, I shall start to phone the agencies up and see if anything more can be done, because £5k is a ludicrous amount of money.

Thankyou for your advice - it shall be acted on, when I can be bothered to sit through the annoying question screens of the comparison websites once more.

 

[jamesriley94]

The price comparison things arent really good for younger drivers, and you cant really go by what others get as there are so many variables.

Like mates of mine have like 27 grand Alfa Romeos at 17/18 because their parents have obviously paid for it. But that guys parents have like 5 cars themselves and so can get on fleet insurance, meaning his insurance is like £400. There are so many ways around the high prices if you're lucky enough to have people in the right places or something like that.

 

[Grizzly]

5k for a 06 Fiesta sounds extortionate even by todays standards, a year ago when I thought I was going to be in a similar situation I looked at getting insured on the family's 09 (new style) Polo, with me as named driver I managed to find 3k. I don't think the price would have hiked up over 2k in a year. Try shopping around a bit more, I've heard Tesco is supposed to be fairly cheap. Otherwise everything that james said and if you happen to have a close and local relative who runs a business there's this thing called fleet insurance, *winkwinknudgenudge*

EDIT: james beat me to it with his 2nd post on fleet

 

[seumasbeathan]

when my sister was looking on price comparison sites for her 1.6 Astra one website quoted her a price of 13k :L

 

[jamesriley94]

haha yeh. There was something on the news the other year that young drivers in Bradford were struggling to get their insurance under £53 grand...

 

[Josh Weston]

Unfortunately I do not have such a member in my family, although I do have a cousin who's entitled to Multicar insurance...maybe I should see where that avenue takes me.
I do have a fear that the car that I wish to purchase, the Fiesta, is not seen in a good light by the insurance agencies. Still, i'll have to reassess the situation after I get past the price comparison website stage.

haha yeh. There was something on the news the other year that young drivers in Bradford were struggling to get their insurance under £53 grand...

Holy s**t, Batman. That's ridiculous. Like... farcically so -__-*

 

[Lollipop]

Glad i live in Copenhagen where there is alot of focus put on public and manual transport... No need for a car.

 

[Josh Weston]

Glad i live in Copenhagen where there is alot of focus put on public and manual transport... No need for a car.

I have too many friends who live far away, in places in which public transport is impractical, and manual transport would only be advisable for those competing in the olympics :/

 

[Lollipop]

Sometimes i do wish i had a motorized vehicle, and one day i hope to get enough money to buy a Harley Davidson V-Rod. Good luck wirh finding a cheaper car insurance.

 

[Josh Weston]

Thankyou
Good luck with your Harley, also.

 

[jamesriley94]

Yeh, just dont worry about it. I started looking for car insurance as soon as I got back from my test, and had it all sorted within half an hour. Might be advisable to get insurance before passing so you can practise, it's pretty cheap before as well. I personally didnt bother practising, but just concentrate on passing before worrying about insurance prices

You done theory yet?

 

[Josh Weston]

Yeah, theory is done
And I would, but i'm being helped financially when it comes to buying the car, and so that's not going to happen until after I pass the practical test. I'm not overly worried about the test...I just don't like the reverse around the corner manoeuvre, haha.

 

[Yeren]

One thing i can advise you to do, do your pass plus, it entitles you to 1 years no claims bonus,

Also if you REALLY lucky, your instructor might just take the £60 or so for the lessons, not give you them and give you the certificate to say you done it.


I know it may seem weird, but haggle play them off each other, ring around, use the comparison sites as a "guide" very rough one too, abnd some of the better insures you wont even find on the comparison sites.


If your parents drive, then maybe ask them to switch thier insurance to someone like direct line and get multi car quote that way. i think elephant do that kinda thing too

 

[jamesriley94]

No, thats wrong about pass plus mate. Insurance companies dont even consider it anymore, and if they do it doesnt reduce the cost of the insurance more than what you have to pay to do the pass plus anyway.

You may want to have like motorway or snow lessons or something though. I had my motorway one a couple of weeks after I passed - awkwardly, around an hour away from my house that turned into a snow lesson as well which was pretty scary

 

[Yeren]

just goes to show how long ago it was i done my test lol, my sorry for the bad information with regards to the pass plus

 

[jamesriley94]

Haha, i think it's a fairly recent(ish) thing that they've stopped taking into account.

I think a lot of examiners were kind of cheating a little on the pass plus. It is meant to be in 6 different lessons I believe, filling various categories like all weather driving, night driving, town driving, countryside driving, motorways and dual carriageways. And it's down to the instructor to just ticket the box to say it's been done.

Now you could easily spend 10 minutes driving down a country road that leads to a town at night in the rain and pass 4/6 of the categories, then could get on a dual carriageway to a motorway, get on and do a junction, then come back and be done easily within 1 hour. Obviously it shouldnt really be like this but still.

I personally think it's wrong for people to just do pass plus in order to get your insurance premiums down. I didnt do it myself, but had extra lessons after I'd passed for motorways and snow and was happy paying another £50 for a 2 hour lesson to cover this properly. I feel it's more about making you a better driver so you dont crash in the future than looking for quick fix to shave £100 off your annual rate.

 

[JazmaN]

i've been looking at quotes for all sorts of cars since i passed in august 2010 and saving up, cheapest i have been quoted is £3000 a year if i remember rightly, and that was for a '96 ford fiesta, i even tried Coops young persons insurance, for that one they stick a tracker in your car that monitors every little thing you do and your premium goes up or down based on how you drive, again i used a 96 ford fiesta and was quoted £395 a month... not to mention when you stick in my post code that adds a ton to the price and they wonder why so many young people drive uninsured... im 19 btw

 

[yassarikhan786]

Yeh, pass plus doesn't bring down the price of insurance at all . I passed when I was 17 and to get my 1.2 litre 2006 Yaris insured with me as the policy holder I was looking at a premium of around £2500. And this was only for 6 months, lol.

For me, when naming my mum as the policy holder and me as the second driver the price dropped to around £1600, again for 6 months, which I thought was reasonable. I'm 21 now and I recently insured the same car for £2278.64 (to be exact) for a year with me as the policy holder and my mum and brother as the second and third drivers respectively. My brother hasn't passed so adding him to the policy increased the price by about £300. Adding my mum to the policy made very little difference though.