Insurance for 17 year old's

[Welly]

My mate has got his 17 year old lad on the road with a little 1.2 Punto and the insurance is £3,500.00

And that is reduced to £3.5K using a kinda tracker-can't-drive-between 11:00pm to 05:00am thing AND taking the Pass Plus course.

I had no idea insurance had gone like this and you can't add your kids to your own policy any more apparently?

He's paying nearly £350.00 per month to insure a sub-£1K car

[steve_earwig]

Sounds like they don't trust parents to ensure their kids don't do anything daft. I wonder where they get that impression.

Christ, and I thought the insurance was pricey here, that's just nuts. Maybe there's something you don't know about (i.e. he's been done for something) or they should have shopped around for insurance before they bought the car, I mean, look at the prices Bailes has been quoted for different cars I'd have thought would be around the same sort of costs.

[highlander]

Insurance companies are utter bastards. Just thought I should mention this. It's a cartel - the government says "you have to have insurance by law" and therefore the gits can charge what they like. This will continue to go up for all new drivers.

My stepson turns 17 in February and I wanted to get him learning, possibly shell out a few hundred quid for a little runabout for him - but with the look of the insurance market these days, I seriously don't think I could afford to. Why do they think there are so many uninsured drivers out there? It's too damned expensive, that's why!

Apparently, a 1000cc Peugeot 107 is one of the cheapest cars you can insure a teen for - second only to the original VW Beetle! - but it's still in the region of £1,500+ for a lad and £1,100+ for a lass.

The Punto, while still being in the low-end insurance groups, is still seen by insurers as a "boy racer" car - couple that with the age of the driver, and they just see £££. I don't think the 107 has the same image, it might be worth seeing how much the insurance is on one for your mate's son - potentially could be worth trading in the Punto if the insurance saving is significant enough.

[Welly]

I dunno what's going on - Bailes was quoted in thousands rather than hundreds wasn't he?

Looks like the insurance companies are banking the potential claims against them in advance!

@ highlander - it's most likely cheaper to buy a brand new 107 then over a couple of years

[steve_earwig]

This is the only time I'll ever say this but it's not really the government's fault, forcing people to insure cars is a good idea, the insurers really are acting like a cartel though, competition should drive prices down but they've obviously put their heads together and decided to collectively force prices up. Perhaps someone should tell trading standards...

[Bailes1992]

Insurance companies will let you go on your parents name. But it is illegal and called fronting unless the parent is the main driver.
When I passed my test in March I paid £1300 on the 406. Now I been driving 8 months most companies wanted £4k+ on the 406. After hours of discussions managed to get myself insured on the Focus for £1300. They wanted 2k+ on the 406?
I don't get this as the 406 is worth less, slower, not as well specced and I'm more likely to be hooning around in the focus?

[kevtherev]

when i insured my first car( a 1983 "A" plate) vw polo 1.1 in 1997 i was being quoted over thousand pounds just for tpft. managed to get it for 650 quid in the end with the nfu, then they hiked their prices the following year and wouldnt insure new customers unless they were over 25
its not really a relatively new think hammering young/ inexperienced drivers and the myth that it falls significantly when you turn 21 is crap coz premiums keep rising
another annoying thing is you can be with an insurance company, your renewal comes through you think its a bit pricey so you go and compare some meerkats and lo and behold there is your current insurer with a price less than your renewal ,so you question it and they say its an introductory offer for new customers, what happened to customer retention? ya would think they would want to keep ya specially if ya aint claimed
ive just renewed mine for tpft and its 460 including the direct debit interest and legal cover. thats with 12 years no claims too

[sirwiggum]

Insurance in NI is particularly bad (ever notice the small print in insurance ads? Most wont even touch here!), as a teenager I had to give up on the idea of insuring a car here.

Ended up getting a car when I went to university in a particularly nice low-crime town, got a wee 1.2 clio and insured it with that postcode.

The little Cinquecentos and Scicentos I was looking at as they were 900cc or so, lowest insurance group.
A friend bought one as his first and it was like a wee go kart!

[FarmerPug]

Fiats are great for starting out in, a bit low in numbers over here but my starter panada the yellow one cost £1200 to insure, still and all despite it being rubbish the first car does have a certain sentimental value i would buy another if i wanted a car where i was in the back when i was in the front thats how small it was, i put parking sensors on it and my cousin seen it and said 'what the f--k are you using parking sensors for, put your hand out the window and feel the car behind'

[CountryPug]

I never had any bother getting insured under my dads name in NI when I started driving. I think £300 or thereabouts insured me on the 406 for my first year of driving before I got my own car and insurance. I really was the cool kid when my mates were in 1 litre corsa's I was rocking a 2 LITRE TURBO (diesel 90bhp ) lol.

[FarmerPug]

Wow, i know friends done the same thing and got super cheap insurance like that on big cars like shoguns, vectras, and there was my panda and me paying about 4 times more than they were.

[FarmerPug]

Wow, i know friends done the same thing and got super cheap insurance like that on big cars like shoguns, vectras, and there was my panda and me paying about 4 times more than they were. Still though it built up the NCB

[waue1978]

Insurance companies will let you go on your parents name. But it is illegal and called fronting unless the parent is the main driver.
When I passed my test in March I paid £1300 on the 406. Now I been driving 8 months most companies wanted £4k+ on the 406. After hours of discussions managed to get myself insured on the Focus for £1300. They wanted 2k+ on the 406?
I don't get this as the 406 is worth less, slower, not as well specced and I'm more likely to be hooning around in the focus?

Not too sure why, but there seems to be something about the 406 & expensive insurance. When I read about insurance costs rising by record levels in the news I did a confused.com quote to see what I might be looking at come renewal time. When I bought the car in January I got fully comp for £350 - now it comes out at £450.

When I was looking around for the new car I was also looking at spending about £3-5k on a 307SW & out of curiosity I put in the details for an 05 plate XSi HDi (the one with 136bhp) to see how much that would have been & it ended up at only £350 again - on a car valued at £5k as opposed to the £1500 my 406 is valued at.

[FarmerPug]

Yes this is why im confused the 406 110bhp i will be brutally honest is no ball of fire, ive never driven a 90 but i think 110 is still not enough. My car is in group 13, but a bmw 320d is in 12. Its not fair, does euro ncap affect the insurance costs then id understand.

[DiscoPol]

When i swapped from my BMW 740 284 bhp standard chipped to 315 bhp insurance group 19E
to my 406 90 HDi the bloody 406 was 40 quid a year more expensive and only something like group 12,

so i would say the 406 is one of the more expensive cars out there to insure for some reason