To wonder how young people afford car insurance?

[JacobReesMogadishu]

Dd is hopefully about to pass her test so I’m playing around getting car quotes for her. If we buy her a cheap, old 1ltr fiesta run around the quotes are £1500 for the year!

My car insurance firm won’t insure drivers under 25 so I can’t add her to my insurers unless I change insurance. I’ll go and get quotes for that in a minute but seeing as my car is a massive 1.8ltr car I can’t imagine it’ll be cheaper.

Can anyone please recommend a firm or some way of doing it cheaper. Go compare didn’t ask about black boxes and we’d be happy with this if it brought the quote down.

Oh and try compare the market, I think they show black box policies.

Lots of automatic micros about, quotes of £1250.

Yes, she sometimes works until 11pm so will be careful about black boxes, thanks.

I remember paying £1200 for my first car in 2007. Insurance is always going to be expensive for the first few years. Why do you need to pay it op? I just worked a few evenings a week after school and at the weekends to pay for my driving lessons, car and insurance.

It is a nightmare. My son passed his test two years ago. He bought himself a very old Clio 1L for £1000. Insurance was £1600! This was with a black box. I am a named driver on his insurance which slightly reduces the cost. It is almost impossible to get insurance for a young person without a black box, we tried, the quotes were up to £9000!! Brokers didn't even want to quote. We found Marmalade even more expensive.

Now into third year of driving insurance is down to £600. He has been a good driver, no speeding or points, so that all helps. But you will just need to suck it up as pp has said. As long as young person is a careful driver, the insurance will come down.

I remember my parents paying £1300 for 3PFT on my Clio for my 17th birthday. This was back in 2000.

I bought a Ka when I was a bit older and that was cheaper on insurance.

My DC was cheaper if they put me on as an additional driver.

Even with a black box we're paying £1100 for my DD's car and it'll go up once she passes her test and can drive alone in it (although she will have a year's no claims by the time she passes)

I know a couple of her friends parents bought their DCs new cars which came with free insurance but they're generally for over 18s. Would that work for your DD?

Should add that both DH and I are on DD's policy though she doesn't like him driving it since he brought her score down by not driving smoothly.

It's a More Than Smart Wheels policy so you can check your scores on the last 15 or so journeys.

@married15

I remember paying £1200 for my first car in 2007. Insurance is always going to be expensive for the first few years. Why do you need to pay it op? I just worked a few evenings a week after school and at the weekends to pay for my driving lessons, car and insurance.

She does have a part time job and could probably afford it herself but I’d like to pay it and leave her with money to go out, etc. Life has been pretty shit for her lately and she has a lot of mental health issues so I’d like to do this for her.

@WhatHaveIFound

Even with a black box we're paying £1100 for my DD's car and it'll go up once she passes her test and can drive alone in it (although she will have a year's no claims by the time she passes)

I know a couple of her friends parents bought their DCs new cars which came with free insurance but they're generally for over 18s. Would that work for your DD?

Dd is 19yo so that could work but I’d rather not buy her a new car, I don’t even buy myself new cars! 😄

Why would it help adding parents as additional named drivers? Even if they themselves don’t own a car or have insurance? Not the OP’s case, I know.

I'm older but the insurance aspect was a big deal for me.
Cjeaiest cars I could find to insure were micra, ups and yaris. Ended up. With an old micra. Does the job and road tax is only £30 a year

DD had a Corsa to start with but had a black box and cover from Tesco £1200. We found a slightly newer car gave cheaper insurance as it included more safety features. They rewarded her each month for good driving and sent us a report on her driving. The next year her insurance halved. We were both named drivers and that helped. She was told she had to get more motorway driving experience though this has proved tricky considering Cornwall does not have any motorways.

@Bwlch

Try a non-typical first car. A really boring four door saloon, for example, with a mid size engine.

^This

Estate cars use to be the cars with lower insurance in them for teens and then it was various East Asian models with slightly larger than 1 litre engines.

MSE use to have advice on what cars were cheapest to insure for new drivers particularly teens, and it was never 1 litre small common ones.

It’s painful but a necessary evil and has been for a long time. My first car, 1 litre corsa, cost £1500 to insure in my early 20s - and that was over 15 years ago!

As others have suggested look at Parkers car guide online to check which makes and models have low insurance groups. Unsurprisingly - they’re not the ‘sexiest’ of cars - but that’s the point!! Less likely to be driven like a maniac or stolen.

Once you’ve done that it is just a matter of biting the bullet and getting that first year a premium out of the way. In subsequent years it will reduce.

** on the basis she stays claim free, of course!!

The main reason insurance is high for young people on small cars is because they keep crashing them.

Have a look at cars that young people don't tend to buy, and quite often you'll find that the insurance can drop considerably.

The sort of figures quoted suggest not having a car may be a better option at least for a while, and paying for taxis or minicabs for late night journeys. The figures before you consider petrol and maintenance for insurance, car tax and Mot seem to average out at about £30 per week, never mind the cost of the car to begin with.

@WhatHaveIFound you are massively overpaying for learners insurance. DS has very limited insurance options because whilst British he hasn't been UK resident for 3 years and i'm non resident but on the policy when in the UK and his insurance with Adrian Flux in his name for a 5 year old 1ltr Fiesta is less than £300 a year. When he passes he has to take out a new policy and obviously will be multiple times that but if you are paying £1100 with a BB now as a learner that's hideous.

I’ve found that newer cars, having newer safety features, tend to be cheaper on insurance than old cheap cars.

Black box with RAC in an old Toyota cost around 400 pounds, if you put a very experienced driver on it pulls the premiums down.

Why would it help adding parents as additional named drivers? Even if they themselves don’t own a car or have insurance? Not the OP’s case, I know.

I assume it's because they're not the sole driver of the car. I'm a named driver on my mum's car too and that helped bring her premium down.

TheTeenageYears - probably due to our postcode!

The sort of figures quoted suggest not having a car may be a better option at least for a while, and paying for taxis or minicabs for late night journeys.

Which defeats the purpose of learning to drive.

@roadsurvey

The sort of figures quoted suggest not having a car may be a better option at least for a while, and paying for taxis or minicabs for late night journeys.

Which defeats the purpose of learning to drive.

Exactly. Her first year will be expensive at 19 or 21.