Insurance for sprogs, thinking outside the box

[Gmlgml]

Eldest brat 17 soon, l have a vague notion that car insurance group rates aren’t the be all and end all to get a cheap quote (I.e I’m sure I read a 21 yr old insured a Noble cheaper than a Ford Focus simply as hardly any Nobles had been crashed and lots of Focus had; hence the insurance regarded a Focus as more of a “risk” than a sports car.)

I want it to be in his name for obvious NCB accrual and don’t “front it” aspects, nor can I stomach paying 200 a month for a tin box with “free “ insurance.

I did a play about and for example got a Suzuki Jimny (slowest thing I could find) quoted cheaper than a Ka despite being groups apart; any one got any left field suggestions of what may be insurable for a 17yr old boy or legal ways to reduce the premium (apart from the obvious excess, black box, add his mum as a named driver).) I’d consider anything classic, no street cred, embarrassing or bizarre. Saves giving it lifts.

[CoolHands]

He’s going to get reamed

[randlemarcus]

Gmlgml said:

nor can I stomach paying 200 a month for a tin box with “free “ insurance.

If you are looking at all inclusive leases, those numbers start to make a lot of sense when you are staring down the barrel of a couple of grand to insure a shed.

[Gmlgml]

I get the argument with the 200 a month cars to a degree, but most are 200 a month over 3 years and not all have the insurance past 1 year which is a bit cheeky.

Assuming I wait until he’s had his licence 6 months with him as the owner and main driver, on 5k per annum with his mum as named driver I got a Suzuki Jimny for 1069 per year fully comp (based on a 2k valuation and 1000 excess) which to be fair I didn’t think was outrageous. Not as bad as one company quoting nearly 7k.

[rayny]

have you looked at 2 seater cars, rather than 4/5 seaters?

[Jinba Ittai]

Not left field, but certainly sensible; Suzuki Swift. When my daughter passed her test at 17, she bought a 4 year old Swift. Year one insurance was £1,030, in her name, wife and I as named drivers. Year two after a clean year down to £650. Yes it will undoubtedly be higher for a boy, but whatever you do it’s going to be big bucks.

[Chris Hinds]

Gmlgml said:

I get the argument with the 200 a month cars to a degree, but most are 200 a month over 3 years and not all have the insurance past 1 year which is a bit cheeky.

Assuming I wait until he’s had his licence 6 months with him as the owner and main driver, on 5k per annum with his mum as named driver I got a Suzuki Jimny for 1069 per year fully comp (based on a 2k valuation and 1000 excess) which to be fair I didn’t think was outrageous. Not as bad as one company quoting nearly 7k.

That’s a very good quote despite what others think - I paid 1095 for my first year... but that was 2001! I had a Rover 214S that was left to me by my grandfather. Again not a “young person’s car” which helped.

Other ideas - Jag S-Type or X-Type, Ford Mondeo type cars that young people are unlikely to drive...

[Fore Left]

Jinba Ittai said:

Yes it will undoubtedly be higher for a boy, but whatever you do it’s going to be big bucks.

It won't. Insurance companies have not been allowed to discriminate on sex for a few years now.

[Pinkie15]

Few years ago knew someone who got his son a 520d as insurance was about half that of Corsa/Fiesta/small French car

Going through same with our eldest, got her driving test in 1.5 weeks time: struggled to find anything 'cheaper' (ha ha) than £1500 with what I thought would be 'left field' types such as Mondeo/other saloons. Anyway she's now been given her grandmother's Honda Jazz, which will be 1500, but no box thingy.

One of her friend's got a Smart for four, that was 1200 about 9 months ago, but for us quotes again 1500.

Mate at work's son just got a 118i, that's 1600 with a black box thingy

My conclusion is starting price for new driver is now 1500

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Jinba Ittai said:

Yes it will undoubtedly be higher for a boy, but whatever you do it’s going to be big bucks.

2012 want their facts back.

[Durzel]

randlemarcus said:

Gmlgml said:

nor can I stomach paying 200 a month for a tin box with “free “ insurance.

If you are looking at all inclusive leases, those numbers start to make a lot of sense when you are staring down the barrel of a couple of grand to insure a shed.

Will those leases include 17 year olds? I’d have assumed that they have a minimum age requirement themselves since the risk doesn’t just disappear when it’s a lease car, it gets shunted onto them, and almost certainly isn’t modelled into their profit and loss on £200 p/m.

[Sycamore]

Worth looking away from the "common" cars like corsas, clios etc.

I insured a Smart Roadster at 17 for a third of what it would've been on a more common car.
I'd imagine the number of 17 year olds crashing Smart Roadsters is rather low, hence being strangely cheap to insure.

My brother is 18 and just changed from a clio to a 1 series, his insurance was halved.

Get them in a Volvo

[BertBert]

First car for daughter a few years back was a rather tired S1 106 Rallye

[Gmlgml]

Durzel said:

Will those leases include 17 year olds? I’d have assumed that they have a minimum age requirement themselves since the risk doesn’t just disappear when it’s a lease car, it gets shunted onto them, and almost certainly isn’t modelled into their profit and loss on £200 p/m.

They will with an 18yr old on most. That’s another reason to put me off, he’d have to wait a year.

[Flooble]

What about a Smart ForTwo?

Only two seats - so that minimises the "mates taxi" aspect, plus may help if insurers rate on number of seats (more seats = more injuries = higher premiums?)
Zero credibility for being "Max Powered" so most of the "fleet" is likely to be driven by people who don't make a habit of crashing
Just about fast enough to do some damage if you really tried hard - so any fault claims that are made on them are probably small amounts
Doddle to park - so unlikely to have any parking ding claims against them
Even old ones had ESP (I think) - so bonus points for "active safety"
Tiny engine - if there is any rating on engine capacity
Not really a long distance car - so most of them will have had a quiet life in the city, less chance of whopping claims for multi-vehicle motorway pileups

Plus the kid will probably only use it when they really have to, so your fuel bills will be lower!

[Gmlgml]

I can’t help but think there’s a market for some type of mass quote app.

So rather than having the ball ache on laboriously submitting quotes for individual cars wouldn’t it be helpful if you could put in a long list of vehicles (or even it suggested some to you) to give you an indicative or “ball park” figure that you could then chase up.

This figure need not be a “quote” per se but use car groupings and industry data to outline a figure that you could firm up. Wishful thinking I guess although I’d argue it would actually help insurance companies to get young people their own policy rather than be named drivers or fronted.

[omniflow]

Have you looked at Multicar policies?

[Flooble]

Gmlgml said:

I can’t help but think there’s a market for some type of mass quote app.

So rather than having the ball ache on laboriously submitting quotes for individual cars wouldn’t it be helpful if you could put in a long list of vehicles (or even it suggested some to you) to give you an indicative or “ball park” figure that you could then chase up.

This figure need not be a “quote” per se but use car groupings and industry data to outline a figure that you could firm up. Wishful thinking I guess although I’d argue it would actually help insurance companies to get young people their own policy rather than be named drivers or fronted.

Problem with that is different insurers will have different models so you couldn't do a generic solution when you are trying to find these outliers where a particular firm is, for want of a better phrase, "blind sided" by an unusual choice of car. Effectively when you buy a 5 series for a 17 year old you are "gaming" the system.

I thought the idea of the grouping system was to give you the sort of "indicative" figure you are after. E.g. get a quote on a Group 2 car and most Group 2 cars will come out about the same price.

I guess you could put a screen-scrape front-end onto something like confused.com and squirt in a list of 100 cars to get the lowest actual quote for each car in turn - which would probably be a different insurer for each type of "oddity" car. I doubt confused.com would be overly happy about it though!

[Gmlgml]

Flooble said:

What about a Smart ForTwo?

Only two seats - so that minimises the "mates taxi" aspect, plus may help if insurers rate on number of seats (more seats = more injuries = higher premiums?)
Zero credibility for being "Max Powered" so most of the "fleet" is likely to be driven by people who don't make a habit of crashing
Just about fast enough to do some damage if you really tried hard - so any fault claims that are made on them are probably small amounts
Doddle to park - so unlikely to have any parking ding claims against them
Even old ones had ESP (I think) - so bonus points for "active safety"
Tiny engine - if there is any rating on engine capacity
Not really a long distance car - so most of them will have had a quiet life in the city, less chance of whopping claims for multi-vehicle motorway pileups

Plus the kid will probably only use it when they really have to, so your fuel bills will be lower!

I like that idea, was sort of in the same line of thinking as my Jimny idea (not driven by young people, rarely goes near a motorway and more likely to be used in the countryside than the towns and ergo have not many claims)

Must admit hadn’t given much thought to going large (Mondeo etc) so I might give that a try. Or a Morris Minor !

[Haltamer]

Out of the ordinary is good (For young drivers):- Take a look at 8 / 9G Civics of the 1.4 Variety.