OK, so my 18 year old lad has passed his driving test, and he’s been given the option of a 2006 Fiat Panda (nice primrose yellow model) 1.1L. Cheapest insurance quote so far is £2700 TPF&T. So that’s a non starter then.

Have been using several of the online comparision sites to get quotes, but even playing the various options (putting his mum as the main driver and him as a named driver, Third Party only, etc, the quotes are not coming down. I keep hearing other parents say “getting son insured added £700 to the premium – WTF!”. How have they managed that then?

Anyone got any ideas or favoured insurance companies for a cheapish quote? I was hoping to get a policy for £1000, but it now seems he’s going to have to pay a lot more than that. He’s a student, living away from home during the week, and at home at weekends.

Haven’t tried NFU yet….

sell the car and get him a bike

insurance – negligable

Additional training such as pass plus can reduce it by a fair old amount.

Have you looked into these Smartbox gizmos that Cooperative insurance are doing?

does it have to be that car? it might be worth thinking about more unusual choices not necessarily small engines either.

I don’t know, but do any of the manufacturers offer deals on new cars with insurance to 18year olds? i am thinking peugeot used to do something on the 107?

Go third party only. The cars not worth anything anyway.

Thats what we did.

We got our daughter covered for £650 with insurethebox.co.uk

Wouldn’t add him as the additional driver and mum as main as its illegal ( if he’s gonna use it the most!), pass plus will reduce it a bit, add a female additional driver with him as the main will help(middle aged or older is best with a clean licence and no claims),

Car Insurance for 18 year old – any ideas how to (legally) reduce it?

Wait 25 years.

I’d do fully comp instead as it’s very often cheaper. Apart from that you need to contact brokers and get on the phone, the comparison sites aren’t great for young drivers.

The £700 to add was probably on a car they already had and used themselves. Don’t put his Mum as the main driver if she’s not (that’s fraud) but it can be helpful to have older drivers with clean records on the insurance to bring the price down, even if they only drive it very rarely.

The only way you’ll likely get it much cheaper is with one of the limited mileage black box policies which also restrict when it’s driven but even that is likely to be close to £2k.

Go for an insurance company that has a tracker fitted,usually means he won’t be able to use it between 11pm & 5am(& that’s no bad thing imo).This cut my son’s insurance for his Clio down from £3,200 to £1,550.TBH third party made little difference to his so we went for fully comp with £600 excess…

Supertacky….

Third party only? WOW! Really impressed that you are 100% certain that your daughter will in no way be to blame for any accident that she might be involved in during the next year.

The idea of having to stump up cold hard cash in compensation for an entire new rear wing of a 2011 Bentley that my 18 daughter (in her 5 year old Ford KA) just happened to scrape as she reversed out of a tight parking space just freaks me out. Thats what Fully comp ins is for.

the Bentley owner would be the 3rd party covered

Errr no simon-semtex that’s what third party insurance is for. Fully comp insurance is for covering the damage to your car.

Simon_Semtex – Member

Supertacky….

Third party only? WOW! Really impressed that you are 100% certain that your daughter will in no way be to blame for any accident that she might be involved in during the next year.

The idea of having to stump up cold hard cash in compensation for an entire new rear wing of a 2011 Bentley that my 18 daughter (in her 5 year old Ford KA) just happened to scrape as she reversed out of a tight parking space just freaks me out. Thats what Fully comp ins is for.

err no….

3rd party cover the damage caused by the driver. often for fire and theft too, but not for the damage they caused to their own car.

fully comp is for those who are shit drivers. why else would you insure yourself against damage you cause to your own vehicle?

The idea of having to stump up cold hard cash in compensation for an entire new rear wing of a 2011 Bentley that my 18 daughter (in her 5 year old Ford KA) just happened to scrape as she reversed out of a tight parking space just freaks me out. Thats what Fully comp ins is for.

Should have driven off it’s the done thing now! 😉

Mum named on the insurance. Google group 1 insurance cars, not all the 1.1 Fiats are in this group.

Not much help to you but for others reading insure the young driver as a learner before they pass their test. Our 18 year old had a month insured as a learner and £300 was taken off the price for solo driving when he passed.

Still £2751 with the Coop and a Smartbox gizmo. Insurethebox next.

Thanks for the help. Might be cheaper for him to move house!

That’s £50 a week. How much does he need a car?

Taxis and public transport and wait till he is 21?

fully comp is for those who are shit drivers. why else would you insure yourself against damage you cause to your own vehicle?

Why, cos sometimes people hit your car when it’s parked & then drive off even though they’ve caused 2K’s worth of damage….Durrr 🙄

reduce the mileage/ value/ select the most appropriate address as his home

Older car?

He certainly doesn’t need a car £2700 worth. I might be swapping the car usage around a bit in the household (I get 2 cars through work, which wife and daughter use – one of them can use the Panda and son can use a work car (this is fully legit before anyone assumes it isn’t). I get to use my bike for work, as usual!

was going to suggest gender reassignment but having just checked witha quote ofr an 18yr old girl 1000 excess 1000 value thrid party only i was quoted 2800 to 5300 for third party only!! makes the 105 quid i paid for that old mini 31 years ago seem like good value.

Move house, preferably to a farm so you can join the NFU.

Have you tried looking at a better car ? I would imagine lots of claims are made by Panda drivers as they’re probably more likely to spin off the road, catch fire or just get abused. Get his mum to Start the car up for him in the morning and park it up when he comes home – she’ll be driving it twice as many times a day…

Insure him on a classic for about 300 miles a year and just keep it in the garage till he finishes uni to start building some no-claims?

Paid just under £1k for my 17yr old son’s insurance on the co-op with the horrid black box. It doesn’t do many miles, and we agreed not to drive often between 11pm and 6am.

I try to avoid using that car now, as I hate the way it thinks my driving is rubbish, but he uses it as much as he can.

Why, cos sometimes people hit your car when it’s parked & then drive off even though they’ve caused 2K’s worth of damage….Durrr

to cause 2k worth of damage to any of my last three motors you’d have had to do more than write them off….

or you could move to a nicer area or park at the back of Tescos carpark and walk an extra 50m when you go shopping….

Why, cos sometimes people hit your car when it’s parked & then drive off even though they’ve caused 2K’s worth of damage….Durrr

MIB is an option in that case I believe

http://www.mib.org.uk/Home/en/default.htm

I think a village is missing it’s idiot…………

1. Pass plus / AMI
2. Third part only.
3. Black box thing.
4. classic car.

Simon_Semtex – Member
Supertacky….

Third party only? WOW! Really impressed that you are 100% certain that your daughter will in no way be to blame for any accident that she might be involved in during the next year.

The idea of having to stump up cold hard cash in compensation for an entire new rear wing of a 2011 Bentley that my 18 daughter (in her 5 year old Ford KA) just happened to scrape as she reversed out of a tight parking space just freaks me out. Thats what Fully comp ins is for.

You appear to not understand what third party insurance is.

I think a village is missing it’s idiot………..

Well thought out reply there,
if all you can manage is insults as a reply, I’ll leave you to argue with yourself

MIB is an option in that case I believe

MIB would cover damage to your car from uninsured drivers. I don’t think it’d cover that sort of situation.

This seems to suggest it would be an option to try

http://www.mib.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/031A958B-1950-4064-8367-EAE93C4DB5AE/0/FAQGuaranteedFund.pdf

Pass plus dropped my first years insurance by a grand.

Because of the price of insurance, i encourage everyone under the age of like.. 21 to wait to get a car. It’s nigh on impossible for people to afford car insurance at the age of 17/18 now, unless parents are wanting to pay for it.

As for insurance, fully comp is normally cheaper than TPFT.

I passed just last yea. Im 25 and drive a Fiat Seicento 900cc box. Costs me £1400 fully comp to insure with 1st central. Admiral are also quite xheap for younger drivers but you need to ring up for a pay monthly price. Alot cheaper to insure my motorbike tho. £107 comp on a Hyo GT250R

Why does he NEED a car at 18? I didnt own a car until I was 24 when I could afford it, and then got 1 years free insurance.

Before that I was on my parents insurance and just drove their car when I realy needed to. People like Direct Line would allow him to build no claims doing that too (as I understand)

I overheard someone the other day, saying the average cost of young drivers insurance (their own car) was something like £2,000???

Mental!

Have you checked out how much it will cost him 6 months or a year after the test?

I know my insurance quotes for the same car dropped from £1400 to £800 in the first 6 months. Although I was 32, I don’t know if the same happens at 18. Made way more difference than that amount of time of no-claims bonus.

Missing 6 months of driving only means missing this winter, plus as an added bonus you don’t have the worry of a new driver driving in ice and snow.

Again I’m old, but pass plus seemed to make absolutely no difference to quotes at my age, even when I’d just passed – the cheapest quotes all ignored it.

Oh and I found third party no cheaper than comprehensive (some companies even quote it higher for some crazy reason). With a cheap car and a new driver, the big risk is that you write off someone elses expensive car, or injure someone else badly, so the comprehensive bit is a tiny risk in proportion to the damage you could do to others.

In terms of how people get kids added to their policies and only pay £700 or whatever, it is probably that they have an existing car and add the kid onto that as a named driver, which makes it plausible that the kid is actually not the main driver, whereas if you sign up for a whole new policy with a kid as a named driver, they probably assume you’ve actually bought the car for the kid and are just telling lies about who will drive it most.

Joe

He doesn’t NEED a car at 18, just would make life a lot easier. We live in a very rural area with no buses etc, and currently he borrows parents cars when he is home. Getting to and from college each week is a pain as we have to go and fetch him. Plus, the more he drives, the more experience he gets, so (hopefully) the better he gets.

But none of this is worth more than £1200 a year to me/him (that’s the limit we have set) – certainly isn’t worth £3000 a year.