Mumsnet Talk

My son is nearly 19 and passed his test about 18 months ago. He's lucky enough to be able to drive my husband's company car so costs us nothing provided he doesn't have an accident.

He has just bought a 1.2 Fiesta from a relative for next to nothing. It's W reg which is 12 years old. He's got a temporary job lined up for about 3 weeks which he had hoped would fund his insurance. He'll be starting work at 6am so it would be handy if he could get insured beforehand.

He's been looking online for quotes and the cheapest he's found is about £2500.

Does anyone have any top tips for getting the cost down?

Thanks

Crikey, that's a lot. What about this www.confused.com/car-insurance/articles/how-a-black-box-means-cheaper-car-insurance-for-young-drivers

We used Tesco to insure DS1 on family car. It costs £2k per annum ( we used to pay £200 per annum!)
Try Tesco and if that fails consider going via a broker.

Thanks both. Graceparkhill this is his own car so he will be the main driver which is why quotes are so high. I can have him as a named driver on my car for £1400 but that doesn't really help as he wouldn't be able to use it daily. I'm sure you already know that putting a young named driver on your policy when they're actually the main driver invalidates the insurance and is an offence.

DS is 20, drives a KA and has insurance through Admiral for around £600 a year (he's been on his own policy since he was 18 though). As a family we were insured via Tesco but on his own DS found Admiral gave the lowest quote. Admiral and Kwikfit give him the lowest quotes. My future son-in-law is early 20's and his car is insured through Aviva as is DD's as they got 12 month insurance for the price of 9. Aviva aren't on comparison sites so might be worth trying.

Just got info, sometimes there is barely anything in it between third party, fire and theft and fully comp. worth keeping in mind

* just FOR info

Coop - they use the smart box and certain restrictions but ds's first yr insurance was circa £1400 and this years renewal circa £800

Thanks . It's been infuriating, actually - he only paid £250 for a lovely little car with only 35,000 miles on the clock, but the whole thing relied on the cost of insurance so he checked this out before he bought it. He went on a price comparison website and put in all his details including date of birth. He got a quote for £1300 so bought the car. Then today he tried to pay for insurance and was told that they only insure drivers over 21!

It is beyond frustrating! He had the most ridiculous quotes, he has a 1.2 fiesta btw but it's 06 reg - that did'nt seem to make too much difference though.

Hope he's off driving his own car soon - oh and my ds is 19 also so coop should be comparable for yours.

Has he tried Young Marmalade? A friend's DS insured through them.

Thanks for all this! I'll check again tomorrow

Can you wait a few weeks? If you leave it until after December 21st you'll get much better quotes: the law on insurance is changing and they will no longer be allowed to set different premiums for male/female drivers. It will suddenly get cheaper for teenage boys, and more expensive for girls.

There's a news story about it here - apparently Endsleigh has already equalised its premiums, so might be worth a try if you need to start now, but waiting until after December 21st would give you a much better chance of getting a lower premium.

Tesco/kwik fit and green company are cheaper for younger drivers it would appear, also you can be a named driver on his ins, we have 3 named drivers on dps ins to bring the quote down, it made a big difference. Also paying a bit more on the down payment can dramatically reduce monthly installments.

Endsleigh are an awful insurance company, randomly demand documents in unrealistic time scales, bump up down payments/monthly repayments without saying so, then after a downpayment and the following months payment arrived and went through they realise the car sat on a drive uninsured for 3 days before we joined them and that makes it uninsurable, utter chaos at every turn, seriously after 3 months we just cancelled and left them they were awful awful.

More interesting points! He'd realy like to start the insurance immediately for 2 reasons:
1 he starts his job on Tuesday so will be faced with a 4 mile bike ride at 5.30am every day if he's not driving
2 If he can't get insurance immediately he'll have to get a SORN which means he can't then tax & insure it for at least 28 days.

Good morning - is anyone else able to offer any helpful info?

You can put yourself as a named driver on his car though which might bring it down a bit.

There was a thread about this not long ago here

SecretSquirrels - thanks for that - I did trawl around last night before starting the thread but didn't spot that one

DS1 has a friend who is going on her Mum's insurance really cheaply with LV. I know you want his own, we are going to look at LV for DS1 because the quote was less than half than Direct Line gave us.

The other thing is, a couple of DS1's 17/18 yo mates who have just passed their tests have got insurance for around £1300 by going into an independent broker and letting them doing all the searching for the quote. We were quite shocked at the difference in the prices that the brokers could get and if DS1 has his wn car,that is what we would do.

I've just done two quotes for DS1 to drive our 1.4tdi Polo. It is £1700 with LV and £4334 with Aviva! That is with DH and I on the policy as well.

If he does the PassPlus will he get a reduction in his quote?

I used to cycle 5 miles at 5am each morning to get to work. <<shrug>> He could buy an awfully nice fast lightweight bike with terrific lighting system for 2.5k.

Is Admiral's multi car worth a punt?

My two (DD20 & DS18) drive our cars for a reasonable premium, in fact with DD only it was no more than for just us. Don't know how it would pan for a car of their own though.

As already said adding Mum/Dad as additional drivers can lower premium but make sure quote is for DS as main driver. Fronting is not a cool place to be.