Young drivers

woppy101

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Anyone got any advice on which insurance company's and small cars to look to for young drivers? my 17 year old daughter starts driving lessons tomorrow and the cheapest quote I have found is for a £1000 2006 Citroen C2 coming in at £1500 per year (older cars are coming in dearer )with a telemetrics box,with a company called carrot never heard of them myself but I think £1500 isn't too bad considering some of the quotes I have seen, anyone else got any other ideas cheers in advance :p
 
We found a Fiat Punto to be the cheapest for my daughter, quite a lot cheaper. As you've found the newer the car the cheaper it gets. Between the family we got her a 2011 car and, although I think it's well over the top for a new driver, the extra paid for the car reduced the insurance by £1k+. She paid £1200 without a telemetrics box, she can't have one of those due to her travelling fair distances of an evening. Off the top of my head I think it was Privilege that were the cheapest.
 
My daughter has just had a 59 plate Polo 1.2 for her birthday.

Whilst looking at cars we found cars of 1200cc to be the cheapest.

She has her own insurance, as a provisional driver, with a company called GoGirl Insurance for £330.

Insurance quotes for when she has passed her test are around £1200.
 
Usually cheaper to add an older experienced driver onto her insurance too ;)
 
My 17 year old son has a 2006 Ford focus 1.8tdci insured on a provisional license with Collingwood for £400.
Cheapest quote for when he passes his test was Tesco at £1200.
Not to bad I thought
 
My daughter has just had a 59 plate Polo 1.2 for her birthday.

Whilst looking at cars we found cars of 1200cc to be the cheapest.

She has her own insurance, as a provisional driver, with a company called GoGirl Insurance for £330.

Insurance quotes for when she has passed her test are around £1200.
No experience of the telematics boxes here in Oz - car insurance is pretty optional above what they call Compulsory Third Party insurance that you get each year with the registration. I am interested to read the comment that your daughter can't have one due to driving late at night and long distances. That seems weird if you think about the purpose of the box? The idea is to reduce premiums - or they can increase if you drive certain ways I presume. Surely in pure premium terms your daughters £1200 can only be reduced by a box? It currently covers driving at any time and in any manner and any distance?

I can understand a restriction for a lesser premium but for any driver you would imagine fitting the box should reduce the premium and even if driving late at night and for longer distances it shouldn't ever go past what they would charge without the box (driving without speeding and braking harshly and other factors they definitely don't want to see excepted) - that premium once offered coves all the risks of each individual driver they are willing to insure? That makes little logical nor actuarial sense to me at least....

Was your daughter offered a lesser premium with that same insurer with a box and restrictions?

As usual I am probably missing something here.....
 
My 17 year old son has a policy with MoreThan, £1300 fully comp for a 60 plate i10 1.2 engine. It has a black box fitted. A word of caution, if going down the black box route, make sure you don't have a policy that has a curfew for late/early morning use, unless of course that works for you!!
 
I remember paying £1300 15 years ago for my 1.3 Nova, and that was fronting. Who says insurance is getting more expensive.
 
Adrian Flux are good for all "high risk" drivers. Used them when I first dropped out of the company car scheme.
 
My daughter went with 'Tesco Box Insurance' on 10 plate Corsa 1.3CDTI ecoflex for £1k fully comp (6k miles per year) when she passed at 17 last April, however she only has 1k miles left so will have to top this up before renewal at additional costs of around £100-200....

As a side note although she has a box fitted it does not penalise her for late night driving (as she works some nights from 6pm-12am) it just notes it's unsafe to be out late.
 
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As usual I am probably missing something here.....

Some companies will reduce the premium for low mileage use, and safe use which could include no driving after dark, limited high speed use or whatever they stipulate and the box is fitted to monitor such usage. So yes, the daughter's quote would have been higher without the box.
 
Some companies will reduce the premium for low mileage use, and safe use which could include no driving after dark, limited high speed use or whatever they stipulate and the box is fitted to monitor such usage. So yes, the daughter's quote would have been higher without the box.[/QUOTEfe
Thanks IG - but my point was that the quote accepted was £1200 without the box. That OP stated his daughter 'couldn't have a box as she drove at night' or similar? if the same company offers a policy with a box then in pure actuarial terms the premium shouldn't increase past the quote without the box - unless the insured is doing things other than driving safely (not including merely driving safely at night - that is covered in the premium paid). She could choose to have a box fitted and possibly enjoy rebates over the year on a premium that was acceptable to start with?

I can understand some companies offer a reduced premium for restrictions and use the box to ping you if you transgress - but that was not really the intention of the boxes IMO.

In reality any driver can opt for one and could enjoy a rebate in premiums as they drive over the year, where the data shows they are performing better than the risks the premium represents.

If you drive like the wind and brake harshly etc the insurance company may wish to advise an additional premium at the point they feel that behaviour is not covered by the premium paid.

insurance companies just need to make it clear what the premium you pay covers without a box and if you choose to fit a box they should reward you as you go. Or ping you as you go. All based on box data and not just using it as a purely restrictive device to enforce a reduced premium to start with. Others schemes seem to be somewhat lazy in terms of calculating fair and appropriate premiums. Again all IMHO
 
Quoting and posting seemed to go awry there - apologies for that :)

Just to clarify for new drivers I would expect the fitting of a box would be a requirement to be insured rather than being an option for established drivers - but insured against a quote that simply reflects the risks of a new driver. The box then monitors and rewards better than expected behaviour and charges for worse than expected. If a company doesn't wish to insure the new driver or wishes to quote huge amounts then fine - that is how it worked for years.

If a driver wishes to take an offer of a reduced up front premium (knowing what the the actual premium would be) for fitting a box then that reduction would reflect what is not considered acceptable. If that is not driving at night then fine - but if the driver then drives at night there will be a clear point up to which the increased costs would reach the unresuced premium. At another point (driving every night 4 times a week or whatever the stisrics show) additional amounts could be charged. Presumably you could be allowed a night drive per week or similar.

The insurance companies have all the statistical data and actuarial expertise they need to ensure this reflects actual risks covered for each driver

At no point would fitting a box mean the new driver (or any driver) is actually 'restricted' as in 'can never drive at night' just to be insured. It monitors what you have paid for in the premium and rewards or punishes good or bad behaviours.

Some work involved for insurance companies? Most likely but I believe this is what they should be doing to improve the service and premiums for everybody.
 
When we looked at quotes there were two which were about £100 cheaper than the £1200 but they needed a box fitted with a time of night specified when not to drive. All the other quotes with a box were a lot more.

From what I gather she could still have driven of a night but would of had to pay more. That added to the fact she would most likely go over the miles allowed then she would've paid a lot more.
 
When we looked at quotes there were two which were about £100 cheaper than the £1200 but they needed a box fitted with a time of night specified when not to drive. All the other quotes with a box were a lot more.

From what I gather she could still have driven of a night but would of had to pay more. That added to the fact she would most likely go over the miles allowed then she would've paid a lot more.
Thanks Lee. It seems the quote was from a good 'specialist' young driver insurer then. It indicates to me at least though, that for young drivers at least, the black boxes are not being utilised by the insurance industry in the most relevant and effective way. They should be a monitoring tool to ensure safe driving at all times - and not to magnify the additional small risk of driving at night as a demon.
 

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