Get the best car insurance for young drivers
For young or inexperienced drivers, your first car insurance policy will almost certainly account for the largest part of your running costs. This is due to three reasons:
- You want to drive, that means you might just be willing to pay (lots) to be able to do it
- Young drivers have more proportionately driving accidents and so represent a high risk to an insurer
- The rise of price-comparison websites has made switching so easy that customers have very little loyalty to their current insurance company, meaning that the companies try to cover the cost of each year's cover rather than being willing to spread the cost of a few years. This has meant a big rise in premiums for young and inexperienced drivers.
If you're looking for car insurance for the first time it is likely to cost you between many hundred and several thousand pounds — so don't be surprised by your first insurance quote!
To find out how young drivers can keep insurance costs down click here
Some important factors that influence how much your insurance will cost you, apart from your age, are :-
Your Gender
At the moment being young and female means you'll pay a lot for your car insurance, being young and male means you'll pay a lot more. This is because insurers have statistical data showing that men have far more accidents than women and this is reflected in the premiums they charge. A recent European Court ruling has changed all that - from 2012 insurers will no longer be able to charge men and women different amounts for car insurance. Most forecasts are that insurance costs will rise significantly for women and fall slightly for men but watch this space.....
Insurance Groups
In the UK Association of British Insurers have devised a grouping system that helps them, and hopefully you, choose a suitable car. They put each car into one of 50 groups, called helpfully Group 1 (the lowest cost) through to Group 50 (the highest cost). This system was fully introduced at the end of 2009 to replace the previous '1-to-20' Group system. The new system is basically the same but with more opportunity for differentiation between models.
New cars have been assessed at the Insurance research facility at Thatcham where they analyse how much it will cost to repair if you have a bump in it. They then factor in how likely you are to have that bump ( generally the idea is 'the faster, the more likely' ) and how much it would cost to replace if you managed to have a big crash and decide what group it fits into.
The things that determine how much it costs to repair are things like what gets bent or broken in lowish speed front and rear end shunts — if the car is well designed then the bits that need to be replaced are cheap and easy to fit. Things like fancy lights and painted bumpers don't help. You can see this with cars like the Ford Ka — the Style is Insurance group 10 (was group 2 under the old 20-group system) but the same engine in a Ka Collection with body coloured bumpers is in group 11 (was in group 4) — 1 group higher, so choose carefully. If you want to find out which group a car in, you can use the Thatcham search facility.
Where you live
Your insurance quote will be based on your postcode. If you live in a big city expect to pay more than if you live in the country.
Excess
Not the type of excess that you'll enjoy. This is the amount of money that you'll have pay if you make an insurance claim if you are fully or partially at fault in the accident or in the event of a theft or vandalism claim.
Obviously you need to keep an eye on this as the bigger your excess, the less you'll get back when you make a claim.
For example, you have a bump and it needs a new front wing and a bit of painting to repair it. This is going to cost £800 but your excess is £300, so you have to pay out £300 and your insurance company will cover the remaining £500. In the case of relatively low cost repairs you may even be better off paying the whole amount as your insurance premium the following year will be more expensive if you make a claim ( unless you have a policy with 'protected no-claims bonus' , which is very unlikely for young drivers).
You can often reduce your insurance premium by accepting a higher excess as you'll pay more in the event of any claim but you need to weigh this up when choosing your insurance policy.
Limit what time of day you drive
Young drivers are statistically much more at risk of being involved in an accident between 11pm and 5am. iKube offers a lower cost alternative to conventional car insurance for young drivers by limiting their exposure to driving at high-risk periods. They fit your car with a GPS tracker which shows when you're using your car. You can still still drive between 11pm and 5am but you pay an additional daily fee.
No-Claims Bonus
This is where you can 'earn' a discount on the full insurance premium by doing nothing — well, by not making an insurance claim. This discount is generally 30% for the first year, increasing by 10% for each additional year up to a maximum discount of 70%. This means you could be paying only 30% of the full premium.
This is how mere mortals can afford to insure cars that are faster and more expensive than ur1stcar but for young and inexperience drivers this is statistically difficult to do. But then you know what they say about statistics......
Unfortunately, it's a bit like snakes and ladders — if you have an insurance claim you're likely to lose 3 years no-claims. You can often pay an extra premium to 'protect' your no-claims bonus.
If you earn an amount of no-claims bonus but want to change insurance company then you'll need to get letter from your old insurance company to give to your new one confirming this.
Provisional Insurance
If you can get additional time behind the wheel between lessons it'll help you get to driving test standard quicker but there's a problem - you need insurance cover to drive the car and that is likely to be pricey. To drive a family car or your friend's car (if they're old- and qualified enough to take you out) you need to be added as a named driver and that could significantly increase their existing premium. Get this in place before you go out for the first time.
Alternatively you could take out a separate insurance policy through Provisional Marmalade for between £90 and £100 a month (depending on where you live) or through Collingwood Insurance.
To find out how young drivers can keep insurance costs down click here
