Young drivers insurance.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 15:12
Young drivers insurance. - Daedalus

Hi, been some time since I posted here, but help is needed.

My Cost Centre 2 who is 18 is wanting to learn to drive and the insurance quotes we have been getting have been ludicrous. He even got one for £11K the other day for a 90,s Panda 1.0.

Were can I get some ideas on what are the real cheapest cars to insure, most reliable, cheapest easiest to maintain etc etc?

Does anyone know of a broker or insurance company who will take on learner drivers in their own car and then NOT load the insurance once they have passed?

Thanks

Daedalus

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 17:53
Young drivers insurance. - unthrottled

All insurance companies will ramp up the premium when a provisional licence is converted to a full licence because a learner is very unlikely to crash whilst a parent is in the passenger seat!

Co-Op do a black box insurance policy which can significantly reduce premiums-if you can tolerate the Big Brother monitering.

There really isn't any way round the problem. Even a group 2-3 car is going to be very expensive to insure for a teenager with no driving record.

Impossible to give a definitive answer on the reliability score without knowing the budget.

One trick I have found with insurance is that 2 valve engines are often significantly cheaper to insure than 4 Valve engines of the same displacement-whilst only offering little loss in real world performance.

PSA and Renault made 2 valve petrols up to about 2000ish. Simple engines, cheap parts and as easy to maintain a post-carburettor era car can get. The lemons from the factory will have been scrapped by now. The ones that are left should be fundamentally sound if well maintained.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 17:55
Young drivers insurance. - jamie745

In my opinion it would be best to save the money you'd spend on insurance and put it into more driving lessons. Learning to drive in two different cars and with different people can make it tricky, its important he learns to drive well in the car in which he'll take his test and has enough money to not put too much pressure on himself to do it within a certain length of time.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 19:52
Young drivers insurance. - Chris M

I beg to disagree jamie745. Even the official advice is to get some private practice in.

A cheaper option may be to get a low insurance group car and insure in your own name and actually use it for a few thousand miles per year, so that you are the main driver and insure with one of the blackbox insurers - CoOp Youngdriver don't charge much extra for a learner to be added. Downside is that you will be starting at nil NCB and your son won't be earning his own, but that should still be cheaper than your son having his own insurance.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 21:45
Young drivers insurance. - jamie745

I beg to disagree jamie745. Even the official advice is to get some private practice in.

Well, so it might be. I had two sessions with one of my parents when i was learning in a little Fiesta and i found it very difficult going from the driving school car into that then back again etc so i gave up on that and only drove the car i'd have to pass a test in.

Edited by Avant on 30/07/2011 at 23:38

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 19:46
Young driver's insurance. - Avant

I'm told it can reduce premiums a bit if the parents are named as drivers on the policy, although the young person must be named as the main driver if (s)jhe is going to do most of the mileage.

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Sun 31 Jul 2011 14:28
Young driver's insurance. - Daedalus

Thanks for you words guys. I think we have decided that he will do his lessons and pass his test with a driving instructor, then pass plus; by which time he will be 19 and we will have another look then.

Cheers

Daedalus

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Sun 31 Jul 2011 15:01
Young driver's insurance. - jamie745

Most insurers dont recognise pass plus now since the Government released a study showing it makes no impact on accident rates (thanks Govt, really helpful of you) however if he's not going to have a car to go out in with you shortly after passing his test then he'll need motorway tuition in some form so i would recommend doing the pass plus.

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Sun 31 Jul 2011 15:49
Young driver's insurance. - GazNicki

I would advise the Pass Plus also. My insurance dropped by £1000 thanks to the pass plus. While this may not be exactly true now-a-days as mentioned by Jamie above - it is worth investigating. Liverpool Victoria reduced my insurance back then (LV now).

I learned the value of safe driving quicker as I had to pay for my own lessons, car and insurance, hence why my cars have gotten progressively better as time has gone on as a reward to myself. I believe that making any young driver do the leg work, the learning, and the paying all on their own is the real way to get them to become safe drivers quickly.

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Sun 31 Jul 2011 16:15
Young driver's insurance. - jamie745

As i mentioned to you in another thread that would be great if young people had a chance of getting work or anything these days which sadly they dont. I didnt pay for mine but am i unsafe as a result of that? Give me a break.

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Tue 1 Nov 2011 13:03
Young drivers insurance. - drivermeider

A couple of cheap cars as claimed by Uswitch are the fiesta, peugeot 106 or the polo. Basically anything that has cheap parts for repair.

A good insurer to go with would be someone like Acorn Insurance who specialise in Young person insurance www.acorninsure.co.uk/car-insurance/young-driver-i.../

It's becoming more prevalent these days that specialist insurers come out on top if you fit into a particular niche..

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