to not expect a £7000 jump in insurance by naming my son on policy!!!

[cricketballs]

my eldest ds is 17 in a few months. He has asked for driving lessons for his birthday and we thought this was quite reasonable.
Whilst I have heard about the stupid insurance quotes for young drivers insuring their own car, I have just run a quote on my 5 year old Focus with him as a named driver (increased his dob by a year so it looked normal) just to have a look....

My premium this year with myself and dh, fully comp, 8+ NCD and £0 excess was £250. The cheapest quote I have found so far this morning with adding ds as a 17 year old who passed his test last month is £7000!

Is there any wonder so many young drivers have no insurance? There is no way we could afford to pay that a year so how is he supposed to gain the driving experiance needed in order to lower his premiums?

WE had this with DS1. We put a downpayment on a little small engined car (the whole car was only £1200) that we thought would be in a nice low insurance group. Then we set about getting quotes. The highest was £9k, the lowest was £3k.

They have changed the way the insurance groups are done now, and this car was a 7 under the new scheme, even though it was only a 1.1 engine. So we ran some other cars through the system to see if we could bring the price down, and we still couldn't get less than £2800! Infuriating. we had to lose our deposit on the car and cancel the whole thing.

We wanted him to have his own policy rather than be 'fronted' on mine, so he could use it for college. If he'd had an accident whilst commuting it would be hard to prove he wasn't the main driver of the car (which in fact he would be) and the policy would be voided, so too much risk.

Both our existing cars would be WAAAAY to expensive to insure him on, due to their value and engine size.

So. Given that he would only have had ten months use of his car before going to uni anyway (they can't take it to halls in the first year) we just shelved the whole idea, as a lapse of a year would have negated any no claims earnt anyway!

So I'm still chauffeuring.

this company is well worth a look. It combines purchasing a new or nearly new car in low insurance group, with greatly reduced insurance premiums all built into the monthly repayments, because the car is under curfew from midnight to 6am (IIRC)

They use a tracking device, (it doesn't track speed or anything like that) and if the car IS used on the odd occasion, an extra charge is levied. So you can use it in the case of emergencies, but it dissuades youngsters from driving around at the most risky times, i.e. the middle of the night with drunken friends as passengers etc.

Tis an excellent scheme I think. The only reason we didn't go with it in the end is because of the situation I mentioned above with uni.

Some insurance companies, eg Direct Line, simply aren't interested in young drivers, so they give out ridiculous quotes.

Shop around. Comparison sites are useful.

Obviously your Focus has too much power, if it is a 1.4 or over that's probably why. It is sad but young men have been known to abuse every last horsepower at thier disposal. It would obviously be a lot cheaper for him to get his own, gutless, little car. Beware, "popular" cars for young people like Corsas, Fiestas and especially Saxo's are even more expensive because they are "cool" and therefore driven by the kind of boys who care about how they appear. These tend to be the boys who take corners too fast and brake too late to impress thier mates. So anything popular is going to be more expensive than anything. Nissan Micra's are deeply uncool, gutless and usually driven by old ladies, so for comparisson try getting a quote as if he were going to buy this one (numberplate is visable, all important specs are there) and see what that comes out at. cgi.ebay.co.uk/1999-Nissan-Micra-1-0-special-edition-/220753853164?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3365f47aec

^so anything popular is going to be more expensive than anything not popular.

also i found that the 'young driver/student' sites were costing MORE than the ordinary sites

But I shopped around absolutely exhaustively - my son was already 18 BTW, and I compared loads of different cars, fully comp, 3rd party, his own policy, with me on it, without me on it, him on my policy - you name it, I tried it! And I still couldn't get it lower than £4k!

(Sorry, rather depressing I realise I made a mistake above when I said £3k, down to £2800. I actually meant £4k down to £3,800. )

That was the very cheapest, and I was working on this non-stop for about a week. I would have reluctantly paid anything under £3k I think.

My husband added our eldest son onto his insurance (VW Golf, 2l X reg) when he turned 17. The premium went from around £250 to £1000, and the another £200 when he passed his test. The second son did not increase the premium when it was his turn.

We switched insurance companies and went from fully comp to third party fire and theft.

and we live in a really quiet, safe area too!

When comparing the cost of the insurance to the cost of the cars and thinking that they could manage to write off x cars a year and the insurance companies would still be quids in, remember that companies have to pay out a lot if people are injured or killed as a result of car accidents, which is why the premiums are higher than the cost of replacing the cars.

Salmottrutta girls premiums have been lower (but still higher than for older people) as they do not cost so much in claims. This was recently challenged at the european court by a motoring lobby group of men who were annoyed that statistically they are worse risks when everyone knows it's women who can't drive for toffee and they won so premiums are going to be equalised for men and women in the next couple of years.

Insurance is a nightmare, a rip off and a complete con. Just tried taking my ex off my policy and it went up without him on it. How do they work that one out!

Yup premiums are going to go up for women because I can't see them putting any down can you? Those men and their flaming challenge

xales. you are right. I have been paying house insurance for yonks; and never claimed.

Going through the same thing... look at iqube

They do not increase the premiums after passing if insured whilst learning. Certainly the company I will be going for next month when DD1 turns 17.

Buy him a cheap car with a 1000cc engine and the premium will come down to around a thousand, insuring him on a relatively new car is going to be expensive, especially if it is above a 1300 engine.

Thanks SardineQueen - I remember hearing about the European Court case now that you mention it. I'll bet Jeremy Clarkson loved that!

It's all a bit crazy though - makes me wonder how the young boy racers male drivers in town can afford to be running cars around the streets. Or parked up in groups in the supermarket car park admiring the latest alloys/go-faster stripes/big exhaust - but that's another story

Can I just say that my DS18 has an old Renault Clio, valued approx £450, and he pays £3500.00 a year, I went everywhere, and if I added him to mine, it pushed mine upto nearly £2000 from £400 a year, he has to pay it as he needs a car for his work.

fabbychic where did you get that from? I've put tiny engined cars in as well and the cheapest quote was still over £3k.

It's also only a small engine 1097cc.

Things have changed, when I was 17 my mum put my on her car insurance and it wasn't any extra to insure me as a provisional licence holder - at the time she was driving a rover st1 which had a three and a half litre engine in it. I past my test and she changed to a rangerover and that wasn't any extra money either. Makes me wonder if it is a big con now that the insurance companies have latched onto with all the comparison sites bringing their prices down in other way?

Renault Clios are still group 5 I think? My Pug 206 is a group 3. The cheapest group 1/2s are things like the Pug 107s, and the Daewoo Matiz (800ccs). (the 1tlr is still a group 3 I think)

I changed from a Zafira (group 5/6) to a 206 because of my own insurance premiums - I am a 28yr old woman with 8yrs NCD and still pay £500 a year. Insurance is a killer.

My son is 17 passed in February and is a named driver on my policy. My husband is also a named driver, and I have the car insured for business use for me.

I am with Liverpool Victoria, and when it was just DH and me we paid about £180 a year, now we pay just over £900.

Just Those quotes are EXTORTIONATE!

Would second the ideas of looking into (1) getting your car insured for any driver or (b) one of those curfew schemes, I think they can bring the costs down quite a bit.

Good luck!

What I don't understand is why insurance for young people has gone up so much - surely its not just about the risk, I can't imagine that the age related risk was so very different when I passed my test?
I remember going on my parents' insurance both before and after I passed my test and I am sure it wasn't very much (or they wouldn't have done it).
And I know some boys in my year got cars and drove from age 17.
What exactly has changed to make it so unaffordable?

I would love to know the answer to that elliot; I also went on my parents insurance before I passed as well as having my own car and insurance (TPF&T) and whilst is was more expensive than my parents were paying it was nowhere near these figures.

The curfew scheme sounds good so may look into that (does anyone know what companies are doing this?) and also finding the most uncoolest slow car possible as I am looking forward to having a taxi driver after the past 17 years of driving him here, there and everywhere!