My friend's daughter is out taking her first driving lesson. He has just come off the phone to his insurance company after being quoted £2500 (really !) to add her as a named driver for their "P" reg Fiesta 1.25. The car's main driver is her mum, with her dad named, both in their 50's with good records, obviously that company doesn't want to insure youngsters. Can anybody suggest somewhere else to try ?
Thanks.
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try collingwoodlearners.co.uk
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Admittedly an older car, H plate Fiesta 1.1, true bangernomics! And slightly older son, 21 in April but only now earning enough to even think about driving. But similar in that myself as main driver, wife and son as named, we both, just, 50, I was quoted £760 FC by Churchill, DirectLine not a lot different. Positive bit was that he can also earn something towards his own NCB as well if he then takes out a policy with them later and they were quoting him something like £1200 FC in his own right. However, if your friends daughter is around the 17 mark then it may well be a different story...... still worth a few minutes on the keyboard though, I would suggest.
Insurance companies generally do not like high risk and, sadly, youngsters and new drivers are about as high risk as they come.
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It might not be worth the hassle, as you really need professional lessons (and a lot of them) to pass the test these days anyway that said £2000 does seem like a huge amount.
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It might not be worth the hassle as you really need professional lessons (and a lot of them) to pass the test these days anyway that said £2000 does seem like a huge amount.
Not the case - my son passed on 15
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"Insurance companies generally do not like high risk"
I think some like high risk as it equals high premium. They love premium and so do their shareholders. The trick is to get the high premiums to be about 110% of the high claims.
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For the last two years I have insured our Clio 1.4 with my two daughters aged 18 and 21 with the RAC direct for £700 first year and £550 second year. It helped this year that both girls are at uni so cost reflected in change of cicumstances.
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Both my daughters had their own nsrance when they were provisional licence holders, both with Direct Line and both around the £800 mark for the first year (TPFT, Fiesta 1.1). This isn't many years ago.
Edited by smokie on 11/02/2009 at 13:07
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www.lv.com/ may be worth looking at.
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Learner insurance is usually cheaper than when they have actually passed their tests!
Get Pass-plus ( www.passplus.org.uk/ ) for better driving skills and lower insurance, but expect £2kish for a 17yr old male in a low group car, and not a lot less for females, especially if in a city.
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The funny thing is my dads insurance halfed when I passed my test! I was expecting it go up, my dad phoned Directline and they told us its now half what you were paying! Very odd.
Also pass plus dosn't always make any difference to premiums you need to do a lot of shopping around. For me Directline works out the cheapest by at least £1k but there is quite a lot of reasons for that.
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I insured no.1 daughter (two years NCB) as the main driver, and no.2 (learner at the time0 for £450 with Quinn. Told them when no.2 passed her test and it shot up - by a total of nearly £300!
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I was in Barcelona recently and noticed a learner in a local driving school car (decals, roof sign etc) which was a Golf GTDI! Are insurance premiums generally lower in Spain? Surely it would be virtually prohibitive to insure a 17 year-old learner in the UK for a 2litre turbo diesel?
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ADI insurance is fairly cheap as learners generaly don't have accidents while under professional instruction. I would assume its it is the same in Spain. There is a driving school in Stockport way which uses a Civic Type R.
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avoid quinn...
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Why? I have never used them, but have looked at them for my daughters insurance.
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Quinns special trick is quoting you a very very low premium for a young driver with a provisional licence. When your daughter passes her test and rings up to advise quinn they will award her with a very large additional premium which will be between 40% and 120% of the premium they quoted originally.
Very very few other companies do this the price you pay at the start is the price you pay irrespective if you pass your test
If you want to use Quinn get a quote with a provisional licence and then with a full licence for a day and see what the difference is so you can compare their overall price with the rest of the market.
In addition my opinion of quinn is fairly low (I'm in the trade) their policy cover is not great and they recently cam in the bottom third of a survey of brokers on Insurers. No doubt other people would have good things to say about them, but personally I would avoid
The suggestion of Collingwood is a good one as they offer very low monthly insurance all the time she is learning, when she passes her test she would need to arrange a different policy but their prices are cheap. They are however registered in Gibralter...
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We insure our daughther as an L driver on an 05 Mini Cooper Convertible (Group 9) for £740, so that sounds expensive but it ob depends on lots of variables such as your postcode, ncd, claims/convictions etc.
We got that deal with Admiral via quote comparisons on gocompare and moneysupermarket, so try those sites as well as Admiral directly. Admiral offer NCDs to named drivers when the time comes to take out their own insurance with Admiral.
I've heard directline are good for learners esp if you phone rather than web: they don't appear on any price comparision site.
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I should add that "bangers" are often more expensive to insure than modern cars as it's claims from the occupants (or their breaved families) that pushes the claims costs up. Modern cars are safer than bangers. This is also the reason why the premiums shoot up as soon as the learner passes at which time they can fill their car full of teenagers and take needless trips to the seaside etc!
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You might find Directline a lot cheaper than you might expect and when she does pass the policies are quite comprehensive. Directline were one of the few companies that didn't tell me to get lost when I told them it was for business use.
What I don't like is NOW I don't have a car I am still paying a monthly premium which will be refunded at the end of my term.
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A few days after i posted this, my friend took his family on a two week holiday, which he earned by swapping shifts with colleagues. Since his return he has been working all hours paying the swaps back, so i have just spoken to him today for the first time for weeks.
He has noted all the replies, and gave rattle's a deal of thought, result - he has decided to spend more on lessons until she passes, and is currently working through all the companies named to find the best deal for her first car.
Thanks everybody for your help.
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I think that is wise. Driving tests are £100 a pop now and I know two people who have had at least four tests. Lessons are £25 each so thats £100 a month on lessons, £100 for each test, if he is also paying £150 on insurance on top of that it gets silly.
I've spent £1000's on lessons, my test (luckily passed first time some how),at least £1k on insurance, over £1k on cars, over £300 on repairs.
The lesson I have learnt is don't rush into getting a car :) although it does feel very exciting which is why I once bought one before I passed but at the time my dad was phyicaly unable to drive and we needed access to a car so that was the main reason for it (I drove it on L plates).
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