To ask for your tried and tested advice-So frustrated and worried about the cost of driving for young men

[imsotiredohsotired]

Morning! So our son recently passed his driving test. After forking out £84 for every 2 hour lesson and for his learner insurance, it's time to get him insured properly.

We would like to give him use of our car. It's worth about £4k and has a 1.6l engine.

To insure me and my husband, it's less than £300pa. To add him as a named driver, it's minimum £3k with a black box (for us all). £6k without a black box.

Now, we paid for our eldest's first year of insurance as a named driver. It cost us about £1.2k more than just insuring ourselves. This time, that's doubled.

I've looked at a cheap runaround £1k (ish) for a 1l polo or similar, with his own insurance and me as a named driver (clean licence) but the insurance prices are the same.

Any hints and tips that make this more affordable for our kids? We have other sons coming up through the ranks and I feel sick at the cost- but determined to give them all the same opportunities.

What are the cheapest cars to insure?

Thank you in advance.

Young male drivers are the driving force for increased insurance costs. My son was hit from behind 2 time but bc of no fault and he being under 25 they were charging us almost 16000 a year. The agent came up with some other way and got the cost down but really still very very high. New York State and the busier county of Nassau with a larger population. It was tough they’re for a while. I don’t even remember the drivers education cost anymore. My son is 37 years old now but still a bad driver but that’s on him now.

Yes, in the UK (and EU) you can't charge more for insurance for men than women, and you can prove that by just changing the sex on an application.

BUT... they can do things like put a heavier weight on plumbers vs. nursery assistants etc. ie. if there's an attribute that's more likely to be had by males, then they'll bump up the premium for people with that attribute as a kind of proxy.

So yes, the people it's really unfair on are women, especially women in male-dominated professions. Having said that, everyone's already said what you have to do - smaller car. I remember when I first got my motorbike/car the magazines used to have lists of insurance group in the back so you could pick vehicles that would have the lowest insurance.