Safe Speed Forums

PeterE's age poll suggests that many people on this board are in their 40s, and therefore probably have teenage children.

I have a question: What's the best way to get car insurance for teenagers with minimal driving experience? I'm hearing that insurance companies are quoting upwards of £1700 fully comp for a 1.3l Ford Ka!

So, if you have any tips for insuring a car for teenage offspring at a reasonable rate, please advise me!

My son's first car was bought when he was 18. It was a 1.1 Punto (R plate)and cost £1300 to insure. I insured it in my name with him as a named driver with Direct Line because they had just started giving named drivers NCD. Dl were quite happy to have my son identified as the main driver.
Unfortunately he cocked his first year's NCD up by having an 'at fault' crash which wrote the Punto off, this was replacd with another Punto (P plate) and the years insurance with DL was completed.
The Punto failed its MOT and was replaced, now that he had a decent job, with a Citroen C1. At 21 this cost him £870 for ten months insurance, in his own name, with Admiral after which they will credit him with 1 years NCD.
Fingers crossed all has thus far gone well.

The dichotomy I found DM was the fact that older, cheaper, low insurance group cars tend to be poorly built and have poor handling, the Punto was case in point. Quite the opposite to what you want a newly qualified driver to be going around in but to keep the premiums down teemnagers really do need to go for unglamorous 1 or 1.1 ltr motors.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Try click the pepper.com my 17yr old las is just starting to learn and he has a Ford Focus 1.6 elle,they have quoted £72.50pm fully comp for him provided he complies with all the regs etc. I make it that it works out at about £800 ish better than some who cheapest was £1400 to the stupid of £4400.
Stephen

I don'tnow how expensive this works out, but direct line give all persons on the policy any no claims bonus earned.

Also adding mum to the kids car policy is reported to reduce the premium.
there is nothing to say mum must drive the car. (you could even invent a femail older driver with a pefect driving record, I don't know how they could prove that she dosen't exist.)

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

I've often wondered about that! I learned to drive in a Reliant - (a 4-legged one!) with a 750cc engine producing a tyre-boiling 35bhp! It had single circuit drum brakes all round and could fade them with great ease! The "worm-and-peg" steering had as much play as the wheel in a ship and it sat on 4 ultra-skinny crossplies with about as much grip as a greased eel on frozen teflon! The great thing about it was that it taught me not to take liberties right from the start - and if I did, it was generally going so slowly, that despite having all the crashwortiness of a wet paper bag, it would usually scrub off what little speed it had long before it had got far enough out of line to do itself (or me!) any damage! Probably all of us learned to drive in similar vehicles, old Minis, Marinas, etc.

I often feel that modern cars (even little "shopping trolleys") are so hugely capable and have such (comparatively!) vast reserves of grip and stopping power that they instil great confidence right from the start. They're also much better "isolated" from what's going on at the tarmac/tyre interface so it's harder for the driver to read the signals the chassis is sending to his backside and they tend to be going a great deal faster by the time they DO "let go"! I still can't make up my mind whether that's a good thing for a newly passed driver...

My son managed to insure his 1994 1.4 Ghia Fiesta with Quinn Direct as a first car without any no-claims, for £1019 (as against £3800 from Calcutta Union...)
When we substituted my daughter's name and gender for his, the quote was £649 for the same car.
How does that work when most of the vehicles that cut me up are shopper-hoppers driven by arrogant 'ladettes'?

Damned if I know!

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Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...

My first years insurance, at 18 in 1996 was £900 from the co-op.

That was for a '84 1.8 litre passat, 3FT. Back then as long as you stayed away from group 14+ you could get semi reasonable quotes on cars with proper engines.

Now things are insane- my cousin in law got quoted something like £7k for a transit connect, and that was with driving experience (abiet with an at fault claim)

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Although it pains me to say it there are some companies offering pay as you drive insurance that can make it more economical for some teens.

My 19 year old will be taking her test in a couple of months. She is looking to get a car derived van. They are generaly cheaper insure than their car counterparts.

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Speed camera policy Kills

My first year insurance was £2600, fully comp in my own name, last year was £1600 and this year it's down to £1100, should hopefully be under the £1k mark this year I drive a 1.3l Ford Ka, they aren't the cheapest cars to insure which I find quite funny, I'll probably get the piss taken here but they are rather nippy compared to most other small cars, especially the newer ones with the duratec engine, but even the old endura had a bit of poke (I've driven both). They aren't the safest cars either which probably puts it up a bit more.

Try a small engined Yaris or similar, they seem to be a bit cheaper to insure.

Edited to say:

I'm 19, turning 20 in July, my first years insurance started about a month after my 17th birthday and was on a 2001 Ford Ka Collecton - Bright Blue (i.e. Purple).

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Mike

Given the price of fuel that we are forced to pay these days, or rather, the amount of TAX on it, it's high time that our benevolent U.K. Government took a leaf out of the Gov. of S. Africa's book and funded 3rd party insurance out of the price of fuel...... with "Comprehensive" as a private option! Especially so, in that they only spend around one tenth of the money collected from us motorists on the roads anyway....

A 22-year-old colleague at work had two accidents. One her fault, the other as the result of a scam. (The other driver slammed his brakes on for no reason on a clear road, so she ran into the back of him).

Her insurance is now quoting something like £150 a month!

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

You have my sympathy on the insurance costs. The KA is a great little car. Its square with the wheels as far out in the corners as possible which gives it great stabillity. Its a sod to park as it is wide and you cant see the corners. It is nippy and grippy. I borrowed my brotherin-laws and nicknamed it The MarioKart (Nintendo racing game). There cleverly is very little weight. The Door trim panel is just an oval about 18" by 10"!
It is 10 times better than any 1.3 we drove as first cars.

I remember paying a months wages to insure my 1.6 triumph vitesse third party fire and theft back in 1980... and that would only just do 100mph and 15-25mpg

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

I'll give you that one! Bay parking is grand, but parallel parking with no space is... Awkward shall we say

Some places were quoting me 6500+ for my first years insurance.

The thing that really annoys me is that my girlfriend is the same age as me, but she hasn't passed her driving test yet, and she has no NCB or driving experience. We did a quote for her the other day, and she was getting about 1100, the same as my quote with 2 years experience and 2 years NCB, we then changed her age to 17, and it was still 1100, I think it's so unfair to guys.

I know we're a higher insurance risk and all that, but surely having 2 years no claims at 19 should count for more than your normal x% off the quote? I know compared to nearly everyone else I'm still really inexperienced, but why should I have to pay for other young drivers mistakes/misfortune? If I had a crash I'd be happy enough to pay the massive loading I would get on the insurance, I would deserve it, I just think it's a shame that the government and insurance companies are so intent on stopping young lads from learning to drive/driving. Fair enough I've done a few stupid things - trolley bay incident - but I've never caused a serious crash, and I've never collided with another vehicle.

Oh well, rant over, I only have another 6 years or so to wait until my insurance **should** be normal Wonder what my quote will be in August...

A lot of people in school got put on their parent's policy, saying they were only driving the car say 2 days out of 7 and all this, but I didn't think it was worth the risk of driving around with void insurance...

I hear all these horror stories of people being stopped by the police 7 or 8 times an evening and stuff, surely these guys must be doing something wrong? I've been stopped 3 times by a police car (excluding checkpoints). Once for driving "a bit on the quick side" at 3am in a 30, got a stern talking to for that one, and was told to take it easy and that kind of stuff, totally deserved that one. Another time was for being a suspected drink driver, this time for doing 30 over mini roundabouts, in a town centre at 1.30am, he thought I was driving a bit slowly and cautiously, and one other time for flashing my lights at an uncoming vehicle to warn them of a speed trap - got a nice shiny warning against my name until July for that one.

All those stops were for a reason, and I respect the police officers concerned in each case (although I found the light flashing incident to be unfair), and I just can't believe that all these young people would be getting stopped for "no reason"...

I know there's no other way to load the insurance premiums, but I just feel a bit hard done by (and I'm sure all other reasonably careful young drivers feel the same) when we're paying the same insurance (or more) than young drivers driving their modified cars, handbraking on main roads, racing on back roads with no lights on and all that kind of stuff...

I'm going to hide now, rant mode well and truly off!

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Mike

I'm insured as a named driver on my mum's 1.4l yaris with Direct Line. Think that works out at about £1,200/year. I did pass plus, but there's no discount as as named driver. I'm not sure what the significance of main driver is. I currently drive it 6 out of 7 days a week, but this has only been for a week and a few days so far, with me added to the the insurance policy back in October. And I may not drive more than once a week come June, so I hope I'm not committing an offence.

So far I haven't been pulled over. Had a few near misses, but I try and drive as best as I can.