I think part of the problem is the choice of car. A Fiesta, along with the Corsa, is the stereotypical choice for a young driver. So insurers charge accordingly.

My nephew was in a similar position a few years ago and got a similar quote for an older Fiesta before passing his test. He ended up getting a Skoda Fabia VRS 1.9TDI after passing his test with the insurance costing quite a bit less than the Fiesta quote. I queried him about the insurance cost and he said apparently insurers class the Fabia (even the VRS) as a family car and so (presumably) assume the driver will be more mature and responsible?

Going back many years, I came upon a similar example of this when visiting a family friend. His son, who had just passed his test, had a Volvo 440 1.8i (then about two or three years old). The insurance cost was less than a 1.1 Fiesta!

So I would suggest looking at alternative car choices, maybe not the obvious "new driver" options. Also, look into trackers and things like "pass plus" (which I believe will reduce the cost of insurance.

I am afraid at 17 insurance will be rather expensive once they have there own car / policy. They need to get a large number of quotes. We were in this situation with our son a decade ago and some quotes were over £6k even then, The choice of car is crucial and it's not just looking at insurance group it's to do with stats of young drivers in certain car - some cars that young people liked could have high quotes despite being a low insurance group car. Bizarrely passing on our previous family car a 1.4 16v (not turbo) to our son was cheaper that him in a Panda 1.2 at the time. A lot of first driver policies also require a black box being fitted but we managed to avoid.

Our son did get the Pass Plus certificate but we found that made little difference to the insurance prices. At least the process of doing this kept up his driving experience up.

Edited by Big John on 28/01/2024 at 09:44