Insurance Advice

[NateWM]

Hello chaps,

I would like some advice for my Nephew, providing you guys can help? He passed his driving test yesterday, but the poor lad is now in tears. He has been doing some insurance quotes on some cars, and he seems to be struggling to find a cheap runabout. He can't seem to find a quote below £4k! I have a hunch he may be gathering quotes for cars that are favored by boy racers though.

So, I have decided to treat him to a car and insurance (although have not told him this yet.) so I need some advice. What cars out there are in the rock bottom insurance group, yet very cheap to buy? £500 is my budget for the car, and about £3k on the insurance at the utter most! He is almost 19, has just passed and will be taking his Pass Plus course with in the next couple of weeks. I want his cover to be fully comp, so that he is able to drive other cars not in his name. The reason for this is because he visits his Gran down south every 4-6 months. Seeing as he will be doing this with a car soon, I will allow him the use of my Honda Accord to drive down there, as it will be more comfortable for him driving all that way in an Accord compared to some cheap econo box he will probably end up having!

Any of you guys have any suggestions? Like I said, the car needs to be in the lowest insurance group possible, yet cheap to buy.

Thanks in advance!

[Jonny671]

NateWM said:

Hello chaps,

I would like some advice for my Nephew, providing you guys can help? He passed his driving test yesterday, but the poor lad is now in tears. He has been doing some insurance quotes on some cars, and he seems to be struggling to find a cheap runabout. He can't seem to find a quote below £4k! I have a hunch he may be gathering quotes for cars that are favored by boy racers though.

So, I have decided to treat him to a car and insurance (although have not told him this yet.) so I need some advice. What cars out there are in the rock bottom insurance group, yet very cheap to buy? £500 is my budget for the car, and about £3k on the insurance at the utter most! He is almost 19, has just passed and will be taking his Pass Plus course with in the next couple of weeks. I want his cover to be fully comp, so that he is able to drive other cars not in his name. The reason for this is because he visits his Gran down south every 4-6 months. Seeing as he will be doing this with a car soon, I will allow him the use of my Honda Accord to drive down there, as it will be more comfortable for him driving all that way in an Accord compared to some cheap econo box he will probably end up having!

Any of you guys have any suggestions? Like I said, the car needs to be in the lowest insurance group possible, yet cheap to buy.

Thanks in advance!

First off.. I don't think you'll get anyone to cover him on other vehicles. I'm 20 and have had insurance since 18 and each policy has had other vehicle 3rd party insurance cancelled because of my age.

Second, add some family etc onto it too. My Dad took it up but my Mum brought it down.

Thirdly, others will have some suggestions but try and think outside of what you'd normally see down McDonalds carpark, Fiestas/Saxos/Golfs they're all high risk really.

[ZOLLAR]

Just to note its very unlikely you'll get DOC for a new driver under the age of 25,
as said above run quotes with his parents as additional drivers the cost to insurer a car is down to the insurer's own claim statistics so the insurance group rating isn't entirely usefull at pointing out cheap to insure cars just run loads of quotes on different cars.

[bint]

Agreed. Very rare to drive another car under FC under 25. Possibly worth investigating adding as a named driver as it is a specific car.
Usual tips, buy something not considered a favourite for young males, also check out kit cars - often come out cheaper. Always add mother too as this brings it down even if she never drives it. Check out pass plus / IAM tests too.

[NateWM]

I never knew it would be so unlikely he could drive other peoples cars on fully comp at his age. It makes me feel so sorry for new drivers in the UK. Insurance prices in this country are disgusting.

I will have to see how much my insurers would want for him as a named driver on my Accord then. I only use it every few days, and he would only need it every few days too as he has a Motorbike, so I would probably just keep the car at his house.

P.S, Any brokers on here that could do me a deal with him as a named driver?

Edited by NateWM on Saturday 23 October 09:31

[ZOLLAR]

NateWM said:

I never knew it would be so unlikely he could drive other peoples cars on fully comp at his age. It makes me feel so sorry for new drivers in the UK. Insurance prices in this country are disgusting.

I will have to see how much my insurers would want for him as a named driver on my Accord then. I only use it every few days, and he would only need it every few days too as he has a Motorbike, so I would probably just keep the car at his house.

Unfortunately the reason new drivers can't get DOC is because are large majority of them abused the cover, nobody to blame but themselves unfortunately.

[tomwoodis]

Agree with everyones suggestions.

The insurance group being low wont always indicate cheap insurance.

My recommendation to save you a bit of time would be to set up an insurance quote on confused.com or gocompare site, get a quote for a particular car. its a very quick process to edit the quote each time and just change the vehicle to see what is going to be the cheapest (if thats the right word!) to insure.

You'll have another dilema on your hands of course which is that he may not want the cars that come out as the cheapest to insure. I suspect things like old nissan Micra's would be a good bet but some people wouldnt be seen dead in one.

He is however getting this for free so he shouldn't be too picky

As has been said, try some stuff really out of the norm, you might be surprised at what comes out.

In particular, think of things that are unlikely to have been crashed all the time by young drivers, that will certainly help.

What about a classic car, would he want to get his hands dirty? Classic insurance can be quite good value sometimes

[andyjo1982]

Driving other cars is usually based on the age and occupation of the driver, NOT the cover. Some insurers will usually start to offer this for 21 and over, the majority though its over 25.

What postcode are does he live in? whats his occupation?

ETA, hes highly unlikely to get 'classic insurance' due to his age. Just because a car is over 15, 20, 25 years old, doesn't automatically mean its a classic. To fit on a classic car policy, the driver will normally need to be over 19, own and insure another car in their own name, be driving less than 5000mpa and the vehicle be garaged, possibly driveway. HTH

Edited by andyjo1982 on Saturday 23 October 09:57

[Ash From Flux]

I think in your budget the cheapest cars to insure are probably.

1.0 Corsa
1.1 Saxo
1.1 Metro
1.0 Micra

To be honest anything similar to that would be best. The very cheapest cars to insure for young drivers are original Beetles and Minis but I guess they are over £500 to buy.

[ManOpener]

Ash From Flux said:

I think in your budget the cheapest cars to insure are probably.

1.0 Corsa
1.1 Saxo
1.1 Metro
1.0 Micra

To be honest anything similar to that would be best. The very cheapest cars to insure for young drivers are original Beetles and Minis but I guess they are over £500 to buy.

Polos seem to be considerably cheaper than the usual French crap. Well, when I passed, a 1.4 16v Polo was cheaper than a Saxo 1.4 and about half that of a VTR despite having pretty much exactly the same power output

[chrisispringles]

I know this will be deeply embarressing for hime, but I've found that a 1995 1.8 Volvo 440 would cost less than £2.5k to insure with a 17 y/o who's just passed his test as the main driver and the parents as named drivers, so it isn't fronted. Much cheaper than pretty much anything else. As a general rule, avoid anything that boy racers buy, like corsas, saxos, fiestas, 106s and the like.

[snoopstah]

I'm amazed that no insurance company has yet cottoned on to the idea of providing a service where you input the driver's details, and they provide a sorted list of cars by price.

[elanfan]

I fear the OP is also assuming that the Driving other Cars extension covers his nephew Comprehensively on the other cars he drives - it doesn't I'm afraid it just gives third party only cover.

On that basis it is just not worth insuring a £500 hack comprehensive you might as well go TPF&T - the premium probably won't reduce massively as the main risk is that to third parties but even if you got Comp cover on a £500 car the excess would probably be over £250 so you are only covering the other £250 of the value - its just not worth it.

If he is to drive your car regularly then extend your cover so he benefits from Comp - some insurers may even give him a starter bonus after he has driven yours accident free for a year - so maybe better to wait a year before getting his own car.

[andyjo1982]

snoopstah said:

I'm amazed that no insurance company has yet cottoned on to the idea of providing a service where you input the driver's details, and they provide a sorted list of cars by price.

It would take years to create that sort of database, let alone trying to keep it up to date. Good idea in theory, but with so many different factors and variables, its a non starter.

[snoopstah]

andyjo1982 said:

It would take years to create that sort of database, let alone trying to keep it up to date. Good idea in theory, but with so many different factors and variables, its a non starter.

What?

No need to create a database at all. Insurance company already has a list of all the cars it knows about (which you select yours from if you don't know the reg number). So all the system does is, instead of quoting for the car you specify, it quotes for every car it knows about.

Yes, it would need more database processing power, but that's just a case of throwing more metal at the problem. I reckon it would take me less than a day to prototype something that would do this. OK, it would take longer to put it into production, and there are various optimisations that could be done (excluding certain cars that are never cheap to insure), but this is fundamentally an extremely simple addition to existing online quotation systems.

The biggest problem is that it would result in people paying lower insurance premiums, and, if we assume that profit is based on a percentage of the premium rather than a fixed amount, would reduce insurance company profits, which is why I suspect we haven't seen it to date.

[Fleckers]

What about a Pickup truck or small van ?

[jacobpalmer05]

Quinn direct offer 3rd party with no age restriction, however just for something for you to consider, my 1.25 fiesta (1996) costs more to insure than a 1.6 saxo VTR (2000?) So sometimes it's not always about the engine?!

[NateWM]

jacobpalmer05 said:

Quinn direct offer 3rd party with no age restriction, however just for something for you to consider, my 1.25 fiesta (1996) costs more to insure than a 1.6 saxo VTR (2000?) So sometimes it's not always about the engine?!

Noted thanks. Will give them a bell when I find the right car to insure.

[freakybacon]

Try looking on moneysavingexpert.com for advice?

[Ben Hughes]

Insurance under £1500, easily:



http://www.carandclassic.com/car/C186298/