I am expecting my son to pass his driving test in the next 1 or 2 months - when he will be pestering me to make him a named driver on my car.
Has anyone got experience re 'cheap quotes'? I have got a few quotes on line - ranging from 2K up to 10K!! I can get a bit off if he does the 'Pass Plus' extra lesson. Insurance is a total rip off!
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I passed last year at 23
I added my mum and step dad to my policy and it went from 1700 to 1300. They have both driven for 20+ years, no points, no claims.
I also found it was cheaper to say i parked it on the road rather than a drive . This is something to do with the keys being stolen and then the cars being easily identified on the drive or something. This took about £30 off.
Policy was still 1270 with a hefty excess but at least it saved me 430 quid
By way of comparison, here in Oz, you pay around A$1000 per year (UK630) for insurance for an 18 year-old kid driving a regular car, that's for fully comprehensive insurance.
As an aside, some 18 year-old dickhead smashed into the back of my brand new Honda Odyssey a couple of months back, he caused $7,500 worth of damage and was on his parents insurance. I bet they loved him when he went home and told them.
As for young male drivers, sadly the statistics don't lie and they are the highest risk of a claim and the highest average claim cost. Insurers can either charge everyone more to cover these costs (which they do to a certain extent as that's the whole theory behind insurance) or they can load the premiums of highest risk drivers, which is why we are seeing such huge premiums. I seem to recall that my first years premium on a battered old Fiesta was in the region of £800, and that was close on 20 years ago. So this is not a new thing but the premiums do seem to be going even higher than they have before so it's attracting more attention.
Was a brilliant way to get me a brand new, safe car for fairly cheap. There wasnt much of a catch either. My sister did it too and im sure my little brother (16 today will do the same).
What didnt help, was that during my first year driving i had what i would call a bump. I was driving along Hawley road in Dartford / Wilmington and it was raining and wet. The car 2 cars ahead of me suddenly braked sharply and turned right, causing the car behind it and in front of me to slam on the brakes, as a result of this i had to also brake sharply but skidded and bumped into the back of her. This is the interesting part. My car didnt have a scratch. Not a crack in the bumper, not even a smidge of paint chipped on the paintwork. The bird i bumped in to, a dippy bird who had passed her test a few weeks prior to this incident was sat in her car hysterically crying. She had a beaten up old Corsa. When i went to see if she was ok, inside the car there were all wires hanging out, it was a real state, paint all patchy all over, dents all over. Her father arrived on the scene within minutes and we exchanged details.
A month or so later and the insurance letters come through and her car was a write off that my insurance had to pay for, even though my car didnt have a single thing wrong with it. I must have bumped her at like 5 mph max. The following year when i had to find my own insurance after the first years insurance expired with the finance deal the premiums were through the roof. I managed to scrape one at nearly 2 grand for the year. Absolutely killed me that did. I am now 24 and as insurance companies hold them accidents on file for 5 years and it was 5 years since that this year my premium was still close to 1k.
I cant help but I feel I was done over by that bird and her father and the insurance companies. I struggle to believe how a car can be a write off from an accident without a single thing wrong with the other car involved. Really frustrates me to this day!
Hi same experience. Apparently when it goes to the garage that is contracted to fix the damage, they assess whether or not it is worth repairing the vehicle to bring it up to MOT standard, therefore if the car is likely to fail on problems other than that caused by the accident, and it is consequently more expensive to repair those problems than the cost of selling the car, they will write it off as uneconomical repair.
Fortunately for me I was in the car that was bumped, so received a small payout for a car that would most likely have failed its next MOT.
Ignoring the spurious claims from the insurance industry that they are the victims of the piece and the real villains are the "No Win No Claim" solicitors and those minorities making falsified claims, I really don’t get why so many parents are prepared to play along with what appears to be legalised extortion? My own parents never at any stage contributed towards my first or any car, yet these days it seems that every teenager (or even older) is propped up by the bank of mum & dad.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
I’m sure I’m being naive but I can’t help but think that if the majority of parents stopped doing this the industry would eventually have to drop it’s prices and become much more competitive. Yeah, it’s not going to make you very popular at home but ultimately it’ll teach the kids to stand on their own two feet and maybe help redress the market.
And yes, I am aware it’ll lead to a likely increase in uninsured drivers but this is something that’s already a big problem anyway which would go away if the prices were lower.
Now, when you are running at a loss and that loss is caused by spiralling personal injury claim costs and those claims are primarily caused by young drivers, why exactly would any sane company lower the premium for those young drivers?
You also cannot really argue that the problem would completely go away if parents stopped subsidising their kids. That would lead to an increase in uninsured drivers, which costs the rest of us more money as someone still has to pay for their accidents even if they can't be arsed to pay for their premiums. Alternatively it might simply delay the problem. If a 17 year old can't afford the premium and doesn't drive until he's got enough money to pay for himself then all that happens is that he's still an inexperienced driver but just a bit older. This would possibly reduce accidents by a small amount as the tendency to show off, drive all your mates around etc reduces as you get older but you'd still not have the experience, you'd still crash and you'd still cost insurers more money.
The flipside to that of course is that older cars are often more dangerous due to worse brakes, no airbags etc. On the other hand, they're not as fast and are often built more solidly than newer cars so that's probably a 50/50 thing.