Car insurance for teens now completely unaffordable?

[ginforall]

Teen is nearing 17 so started looking at potential cars and insurance. I can't believe the prices of car insurance, I knew mine had gone up loads this year, but the price for DS to have his own policy is crazy. For DS it's approx on average £4000 a year depending on the car (this is for older cars, small engines eg VW polo). Do you have the car in your name and add the child to your insurance? Does that make it a lot cheaper? Just interested in how other people mange this?

Have you tried comparison sites? Is £10k the cheapest?

£10k is mad. They clearly dont want the business.

Id have thought you could get it down below £2k. Still an awful lot though.

Lots of people recommend trying a broker like Adrian Flux by phone who can search and find something suitable.

Things that can make a difference are who is main driver (not suggesting fronting - just sometimes parents do drive the car more and putting them as main driver is both correct and much cheaper) where you live, mileage and of course previous claims.

What insurance group is that car?

Good luck. Hope you find something better.

I love all the 17yr old do not need a car comment - how about sporty kids who travel miles each month for competitions, train all hours for their sports and go to 6th forms miles away. My now 18yr old just passed - 1.2 polo, we have a fleet policy with them as main driver for their car - cost us about 1800 for the year but that's worth it in comparison to the running about!! 2nd child is 17 later this year and we will do the same again

Our fleet policy is admiral in case it helps anyone - we have 3 cars on it

Go through a good local insurance broker, they are so helpful and will find you the best policy at the best price. I could’ve hugged ours! The lowest quote that we were able to get for DD before going through a broker was £8k, she managed to get us a fully comprehensive policy for £4k. Still not cheap but this was for a new 1.6l Mini so your DD’s should be a lot lower in an older 1l.

Comparison sites proved useless for DD and she was getting similarly mad quotes to yours. We looked at an older 1l polo before we settled on the Mini and those sites were quoting £16k for her first year!! Madness

Another sports parent here - DS17 has recently passed and it’s already transformed our logistics!

Oddly also a 1.2 polo, cost 3,100 with DS as main driver and black box. He’ sensible boy in general and become q confident driver.

Our highest quote was 12k for same car !

The car itself is neither here nor there we discovered. The risk is to other cars they feel. So it’s location and their age gender and inexperience that they factor in.

Gender is not and cannot legally be factored in (unfortunately/fortunately depending on how you look at it)

Oh it definitely is. Compare the price difference between a 1.0 corsa and a 1.0 Aygo, for example.

Have a look at Veygo, it's pretty reasonable cost wise for a young driver, they can insure for just a couple of hours use of the car when they need it.

might just be where we live? London zone 2. Very very busy roads with lots of v expensive other cars? I tried different cars for insurance quotes before we bought for my so. and was so suprised that a 1.2 golf was no diffence to a skoda Citigo etc etc? We only bought the car afterwards …

obvs didn’t look at a Jeep or Merc etc. But has googled the v cheapest cars to insure for young drivers and made to difference for us sadly

Admiral fleet with 2 cars on was £10.2k

To keep costs to a minimum just buy a car that is Group 1 for insurance.

We looked for a VW Polo for our DD (now 18 and been driving a year) but it was going to cost £4k. Having looked at a VW Up/Skoda Citigo/Hyundai i10, the costs are a bit more manageable at around £1200.

That includes a black box and 6k miles p.a.

Those who say their teenagers don't need a car and can just get an Uber or taxi have obviously never lived far away from a big town. If I want a taxi where we live I have to book a taxi at least a week in advance, and there's no 24hr company so you can't call up and have one arrive.

My kids aren't old enough to drive yet but I'll be getting them little runarounds when the time comes.