Car insurance for 17 year olds!

[mooncuplanding]

Could anyone advise the best way to get a price that is not EXTORTIONATE !!!

I am thinking of buying DS a 'run around' but the insurance is off the scale (£2.5k a year is the cheapest I have found on a VW Polo worth £500!)

Black boxes don't seem to make much difference?

Are there any tricks I am missing?!?

I recommend confused.com as this compares them. I think the voluntary excess changes the price a bit too. I had a 2003 Ford Fiesta 1.4 when I passed my test 10 years ago and my insurance was about £998. I also had both my parents on my insurance and that pushed it down a lot. I hope that helps.

Have you added yourself as a named driver? That helped me when I was younger (having my parents on too) and it's reasonable to assume you might need to drive the car at some point.

The biggest thing that makes a difference is your postcode, and there isn't anything you can do about that. One thing that usually helps are putting older, experienced drivers on, as named drivers.

Some types of car also put the premium up, or bring it down, so - as you haven't bought the car yet, try quotes for different cars. You can find a list of cars in different insurance groups on line with a bit of searching, I'm sure. Some cars are less 'cool' for teens too, which helps.
It is a nightmare, but insurance costs will always reflect 'statistical isk' rather then the individual person, and the fact is, 17 yr old lads are a very high risk group.

I've just insured DS with Hastings. He bought a Skoda Fabia which is about 10 years old. It's cost £690 with DH and I as named drivers. I'm sure it will go up a lot when he passes his test. That was the best price I could find with a company I'd heard of!

Car insurance is ridiculous now, £2.5k doesn't surprise me, it would be cheaper if you put him as named on your own car until he is over 18/ 21.
I think it also depends where you live, 1.5k for a 21 year old is about normal here, in a big city, just to put it in perspective.

One way could be to check out a car insurance broker. There is one near me that charges £200 (if you choose to go with them), but almost always finds insurance a LOT cheaper.

Also, check out group insurance 1 cars, VW fox and some makes of Corsa/fiesta/polo... It could be that the car you are using for quotes is a higher group.

After thought - Admiral do a 10month policy if you call them up, which brings the cost down. Paying it off in one go is also cheaper.

I'm a new driver but have my age going in my favour.
Go on a few comparison websites adding names drivers it may bring the price, when I added 3 it went up, but two it brought it down.
If you can afford it, paying annually also brings costs down. :)

A VW polo may not be the best choice. Look at engine size too. DD had a 1ltr fiat panda...less desirable. Postcode will have a major cost implication too.
Try Tesco Black Box..we started at £1053 and second year it dropped to £562. Still with box and a 6000 mile limit. You earn more bonus miles by driving safe.
Worth a go ...good luck!

Go into the 'Teenagers ' section and scroll down through threads. There was one quite a few weeks about teenage car insurance and people coming up with good ideas ( and a couple of downright terrible ones).

You may get some advice on there.

Definitely try quotes with you on as a named driver. Don't be tempted to put that you're the main driver though, it can invalidate the insurance completely if you aren't (I've seen it first hand, I used to work in claims)

Pass plus used to make a big difference but I don't know if that's still the case

YY to adding him to your car policy, it would probably be cheaper but wouldn't allow him to build up any of his own no claims bonus, so swings & roundabouts.

Definitely consider a different car - something less 'boy racer', smaller engine etc. It can nake a huge difference.

Use a few price comparison websites, and also direct line and more than smart wheels (think they've took themselves off compare the market etc)

A £500 car, surprisingly, is more expensive to insure than a £1000 car. So when it asks the value I'd recommend putting a value of £1050 or something similar.

I used Comparethemarket and found Admiral, with a black box, to be very good (and their renewals have been well priced too). Couple of other tricks:
Keep the miles as low as you can
Add named drivers who have 5 years + no claims (spreads the risk)

We just insured DD18 with Hastings with a black box. 10 month policy. £210 first payment and 9 months @ £150. No curfew but speed is monitored. She has a 1 year old Polo. Didn't think of putting DH on it but all the same it seems quite reasonable and a lot less than we we expecting.

We got the quote on Compare the Market about 2 weeks before she took her test. Quotes after she had passed were much higher including the same identical policy with Hastings. When we called Hastings to query the price the agent was surprised at how good the earlier online quote was but he confirmed it was all in order so we took it.

Sorry for waffling but what I'm saying is to get quotes before the actual test.

Insurance for a learner is much cheaper than a new driver. You have to call the insurer as soon as they pass to change it over.

Try the new honcho app , insurance company's bid for your business

Not sure about that last post [sceptical]

The more named drivers on the policy the cheaper it is. Multi car policies work out cheaper too.

We paid about £750 at Admiral for our newly passed 17 year old for his newish car. No black box. Several named drivers also on it.

Thanks all- helpful 👍🏼

We paid £1200 for 17 year old ds. I am a named driver. Ds has an old not very desirable car. The popular cars such as corsair or polos will cost more. I would review choice of car.

Just remembered something else.
If you look for quotes starting the next day, prices tend to be higher than if you are looking for prices to start 3 weeks in advance. They know you are backed into a corner. With a couple of weeks to keep looking, you are more likely to go elsewhere.

Third party only insurance if it's a 500 quid banger.

Oddly we've discovered that isn't, automatically, cheaper.

With both my dc, they've found that putting in a few hours work finding the best deal, by playing around with different options, was really really worthwhile. It isn't really relevant others saying what their dc got, as their postcode won't be the same as yours, but a saving of just over £600 for under 4 hours work (about £3000 from some of the ridiculous 'we don't want your business' quotes in some cases), seemed like a good day's work to my dd.

Some things are counter intuitive - for example, putting in a very low mileage doesn't necessarily help (I presume they think you won't have much experience???).......... the fact the car is only worth a few hundred doesn't necessarily help......... having 3rd party only doesn't always help......... etc. so get him to put the time in.