Young driver insurance tips please

[Patrick1964]

My girlfriend's daughter has just passed her test this week, and is 18 next Saturday. She has bought a 1.0 Yaris on A 2004 plate, and we will be insuring it for her on her birthday. We have had quotes through Moneysupermarket and will trawl through the other comparison sites in due course, adding her mum and I as named drivers. Any other tips for reducing the premium would be gratefully received !

Thanks in advance.

[grkify]

I passed in 2012 at 21 and my insurance was astronomical. £1800 fully comp on an x reg 1.4 clio found the that although its time consuming ringing around yourself is a lot cheaper than using the price comparison websites not sure why guess everyone takes a cut. Not always the case though Adrian flux saved me a fortune last year. Work out a realistic millage shes going to do as the difference between 5k and 7.5k can cost you hundreds depending on insurer. Not so much saving money but look at reviews of the insurer and what the cover actually is as some are cheap but for a reason as there customer service if you need to claim is just appalling plus there have been a lot of bogus insurers about that take your money but don't cover you specially when its comes to new drivers.

[snoopy25]

wasnt there a test young people could do to help reduce their premiums? something like an advanced driving test? for the life of me it escapes me as to what it was called though....

[thelawnet]

Car needs to be parked on the road, mileage needs to be 5k no more no less, declared value needs to be as high as possible (to 14999 max), ideally over £10k but less than 15k

[grkify]

Yes you can do a pass plus which brings it down a little. Oh and avoid insurers that want to fit a black box like the plaque your pay a fortune to start with and if you drive sensibly you get money back but you have to drive everywhere like a nun on her driving test.

[DaveH23]

snoopy25 said:

wasnt there a test young people could do to help reduce their premiums? something like an advanced driving test? for the life of me it escapes me as to what it was called though....

Pass plus?

I understand that having it is the equivelant of 1 year NCD.

Not that I woukd ever want one OP but do the black box things lower premiums or are they a con?

[michael243]

Insurance costs are a joke...

I passed in May, got my car in June (1.2 Corsa 52 Reg) Cheapest insurance cost was £3200 WITH a blackbox, the cheapest WITHOUT a blackbox was £6000...

£280 ish a month to insure my car, oh did I mention I done the Pass Plus thing, some of the insures wouldnt acknowledge it...

[ging84]

i was reading recently in another thread that for young drivers having a very high mileage, eg 30k a year can some times result in a lower premium than lower mileage.
Don't assume anything is cheaper, there are some very counter intuitive things which go on like the mileage i've just mentioned and adding extra people as you've already mention, i've seen things like quotes come out lower for having the car kept on the street overnight instead of a garage. Give a lot of consideration to the best way to describe the occupation, there was a search somewhere on money saving expert which gave a rough idea of how much over or under average each occupation gives.

Also be aware many insurers also use quote manipulation detection, so once you start banging out quotes with vastly different details, you start getting flagged by system for a higher potential of misrepresentation, so it's worth starting off with some completely made up but reasonably similar details, in this i would include using a different vehicle reg or manually selecting the vehicle.

Look to quote early, getting a quote for cover starting today or tomorrow will generally be higher than in a couple of weeks time, down to 1 week might already be getting a bit late, although i'm sure it will be cheaper than doing it on the day, but you also need to be aware that some insurer's systems are quite as good at handling ages as they could be they often have rigid structures, you may find that quoting a week before someone's birthday to start on or after their birthday gets a price as based on the age they are at the time of the quote, and done only to the nearest year, so 17 years 11 months and 3/4, may still just counted as 17.

Another thing to consider is the length of time time someone's had a license, may be worth clarifying if you can put the length of time with license as from the date the provisional entitlement began, i am not sure how wide this practice is, but the call handler for my current insurer assured me that I could when i phoned for a quote. I've looked at the quote forms and policy documents for several insurers since, and none are clear on the issue.

[JakeT]

As a young driver postcode influences it a lot. Have you, your girlfriend and her on the policy. Make sure the car is on the drive on in a garage if you have one and limit it to SDP, and make sure they don't drive a lot in peak times. A black box may also be good, and going direct to A company can help. For my second year with Aviva it cost me £550 with legal cover included.

[AJB88]

grkify said:

Oh and avoid insurers that want to fit a black box like the plaque your pay a fortune to start with and if you drive sensibly you get money back but you have to drive everywhere like a nun on her driving test.

Sisters got one of these.. she's had about £1500-200 pound back this year which was her first year of driving.

But yeh avoid if you can.

[Andy616]

DaveH23 said:

snoopy25 said:

wasnt there a test young people could do to help reduce their premiums? something like an advanced driving test? for the life of me it escapes me as to what it was called though....

Pass plus?

I understand that having it is the equivelant of 1 year NCD.

Not that I woukd ever want one OP but do the black box things lower premiums or are they a con?

Pass Plus worked for me. Cost £100, saved £400 on the insurance. This was in 2005 though.

[grkify]

AJB88 said:

Sisters got one of these.. she's had about £1500-200 pound back this year which was her first year of driving.

But yeh avoid if you can.

My employer uses black boxes with there insurance and have been royally screwed over by the insurer think it has a lot to do with how reasonable the insurer is. Ill be avoiding them.

[deebow]

one thing ive found is that the difference between starting insurance tomorrow and then 5 days later can sometimes be over a £100 so once you've found your final quote see if the starting date has any effect

[baccalad]

I find if you lie about your age that tends to help. Also put the car down as a Vauxhall Agila. Stick a few years no claims on there and say she passed her test on her 17th birthday. Don't ever bother declaring points or crashes and fiddle about with the job; say she works for a funeral home or something that'll probably bring it down a bit.

Also, if they ask for proof of no claims I can help you there but it'll cost you

[Gareth79]

thelawnet said:

Car needs to be parked on the road, mileage needs to be 5k no more no less, declared value needs to be as high as possible (to 14999 max), ideally over £10k but less than 15k

Is this supposed to be serious advice?

[R1 Indy]

michael243 said:

Insurance costs are a joke...

I passed in May, got my car in June (1.2 Corsa 52 Reg) Cheapest insurance cost was £3200 WITH a blackbox, the cheapest WITHOUT a blackbox was £6000...

£280 ish a month to insure my car, oh did I mention I done the Pass Plus thing, some of the insures wouldnt acknowledge it...

i would move, live in the sticks and you will be amazed how reasonable the cost of insurance can be

[thelawnet]

Gareth79 said:

Is this supposed to be serious advice?

Yes, those are the parameters for cheapest insurance. Other advice offered here like parking it in the garage will result in premiums that are hundreds of pounds higher - you can try for yourself. And saying that the car is worth £2k will result in a much higher premium than if it's worth£12k

Other things:

Experiment with more named, mature drivers.
SD&p a little cheaper than sdp&c.
Change the job title - school student is most expensive, if you have a part time job then that's pretty much guaranteed to give a cheaper quote than anything along the lines of 'student' You can switch between other permutations of 'student' as well - mature student, etc.

Edited by thelawnet on Sunday 30th November 17:41

[aw51 121565]

baccalad said:

I find if you lie about your age that tends to help. Also put the car down as a Vauxhall Agila. Stick a few years no claims on there and say she passed her test on her 17th birthday. Don't ever bother declaring points or crashes and fiddle about with the job; say she works for a funeral home or something that'll probably bring it down a bit.

You forgot to mention "fronting" .

[KFC]

Patrick1964 said:

My girlfriend's daughter has just passed her test this week, and is 18 next Saturday. She has bought a 1.0 Yaris on A 2004 plate, and we will be insuring it for her on her birthday. We have had quotes through Moneysupermarket and will trawl through the other comparison sites in due course, adding her mum and I as named drivers. Any other tips for reducing the premium would be gratefully received !

Thanks in advance.

You're doing this wrong way around if cheap insurance is a concern. You should have sorted quotes then bought a car to fit... not buy a car then see how much it costs to insure.

[Patrick1964]

We have chosen the Yaris in part based on already "reasonable" quotes, thanks. I'm looking for legitimate, honest ways of cutting the cost further.