[jbenekeorr]

Hi, i'm looking at insurance for when i get a car - I'm not seventeen yet but i want to get a rough idea of insurance prices when it comes to it - I've been trawling autotrader looking at cars (I enjoy that sort of thing ;-] )and getting insurance quotes from places such as Moneysupermarket.com and i have been filling in the boxes as follows -
I've said i'm 17
Car value around £1500
Live in a small village
Added my mum as a named driver (28 years no-claims)
Put a £400 excess
...
The list goes on - i'm putting everything to be true and i've even tried changing stuff to see what difference it makes but i can't get the quotes below :eek: :confused: £2000-£3000 :confused: :eek:

The cars i have been looking at were the usual Corsa's, Polo's etc but they were all about the same price - then i looked a little deeper and found that i can have a Mercedes A-Class .. which sounds ridiculous but it's classed as an MPV and with a 1.6 is still about the same price as say a 1.0 corsa from 1996? ... How can this be?!

I changed it so that my mum was the main driver and i was a named driver - which will be true for the first year as we need another vehicle because my mum has use of the work van which is ... impractical! She also has a Mini but that only comes out at weekends! So really she wants to use my car for popping to the shops to buy chocolate! and that would, over a few months, mean she is the main driver - anyway, this brings the premium down to just under £1000 - However i dont know whether i will get a no claims bonus by doing it this way for a year or so - can anyone tell me? Making my mum the main driver will not be classed as fraud as she will actually BE the main driver.
Is there anyone out there that's got teenagers that drive or are teenagers that drive? Can you pleaseee give me some advice?!! Help!!!
I don't think i've missed anything out .. but if i have the please ask me to add it!

All help appreciated!!!
Thanks, James (a bit of boring car nerd!!) ;-)

[smudger]

Back when I was a young driver (60s, and yes we did have cars back then:o) the only cars we could afford were old bangers, so the insurance was not so costly on them.
I know that things have changed since then, and even with on old banger, you cant get cheap insurance, but being a named driver, with some insurance t be companies, you can gain your own no claims bonus, so when you do get your own car, the insurance wont be so expensive;)
Cheers, Smudger.

[jbenekeorr]

:) Cheers for that! :) Right - do you know any insurance companies in particular which offer this service of allowing me to gain my own no claims? Don't worry if you don't! ;)
Thanks again!!!!
James

[98selitb]

I feel your pain as I was there not long ago. While there are ways of reducing the premium to a small extent, like you have listed, it will still be expensive for the first year. Once you have gone through a year of no claims, the premium can reduce hugely:

I'm 21, male, got my first car last year and coming up to renewal time. No claims made. Peugeot 306, 1.9-litre. Fully comp (including excess protection) with no no-claims history: £650 last year. I have just been looking for quotes for renewal, and I got one for £350 fully comp!

If you believe in your driving abilities, a bigger excess will reduce your premium. The downside is if you are involved in an accident you will be paying out a lot of your own money. My excess is £500 but, touch-wood, I haven't had any grief so far so it has helped my premium a lot.

You may have to bite the bullet a bit in your first year of insuring your own car but if you get through that year without claiming, you will notice the drop and your wallet will feel significantly heavier.

Be grateful you live in a small village as if you lived in a large town your premium could be a grand more! My postcode (rural Devon) is the 3rd cheapest in the UK for insurance so I am aware how lucky I have been with that! One of my friends has a 1.0 Corsa and is paying much more than me simply because he lives in a large city.

I don't know about any specific companies that offer no-claims for being a named driver, but through experiences of several friends of mine, it is not that simple and this statement by the companies is not always true. I know someone who spent 2 years as a named driver on his mum's car, the company said he would be able to say he had 2 years' no-claims as a result but when he got his own car and came to looking for insurance, no insurers accepted this as valid no-claims.

[Rolebama]

There are a number of ways of getting a premium reduced. High voluntary excess, limited mileage, no protection, it really depends on what the insurer will do to help.

[benedwards64]

Welcome to young driving! I was there not long ago. My first car was a £200 citroen AX with a 950cc engine. I was quoted £1200 TPFT under my own name! The best thing I found was to take a Pass Pluss course, which includes motorway driving, all-weather driving, town and country driving, and night-time driving. There are six lessons, and five years ago it cost me £120. However, it also brought my insurance quote down to £800, so overall I was £280 better off and I had some decent driving tuition to boot.

Get a cheap banger with a tiny engine for the first year - chances are you will round the edges off it a bit so buy a car that doesn't matter! I had my AX for a year until I had a year's no-claims, then I bought a 1.4 Clio which was a beast in comparison (!), and the insurance was ok by then too. I'm now 22, driving a car in insurance group 13 and paying less than £500 a year, so it does get better!

Also worth bearing in mind that although some companies will give named drivers a NCB, it will only apply if you take out insurance under your name with the same company. Often, they aren't the cheapest companies for young drivers! Your best bet (depending on budget obviosly) is to trawl through all the comparison sites to check quotes on a 1.0 106 or Corsa, drive it for a year and save for something half-decent for when your insurance drops after the first year :D

[Rolebama]

I have been told that some companies will also give you a discount if you go for a voluntary curfew, where you promise not to drive the car after 10 or 11pm. I have no personal knowledge of this, but thought it worth passing on.

[Fodsy]

ben edwards is spot on Named driver discount as it's call is alway's specific to the company you earned it with. They may give you a good price if so then quids in but also speaking others who don't offer this can sometimes just be more competitive.

If you did want to know who does it then I know of two off the top of my head
Norwich Union (Aviva)
Direct Line

but I'm not gonna say they will offer the best price

[98selitb]

I looked into doing Pass Plus but found it wasn't worth it economically. I found that the relatively small number of companies which actually do reduce your premium if you have completed it (yes, not every company does PP reductions, the majority of them don't), are all companies who still have high prices to start with. Whereas although cheaper companies may not reduce your premium if you have PP, the premium is still cheaper anyway.

This applied with my particlar details and car anyway, I guess it depends on your driving history and your car.

I would advice to anyone considering doing PP with not a lot of money to spare to check thoroughly using the price comparison websites entering their details with and without PP before embarking on the course, because you may find having PP won't give you any reduction whatsoever depending on what insurer you are with.