How Much? Insurance

[Jaydog]

Hi Guys,

first post on here so be gentle!!!

just bought my first car after recently passing my test. Aygo move with style in white. Lovely car and cant wait to drive it...

However trying to insure it as an 18 year old girl is pretty difficult and expensive..

A friend has an Aygo and got her insurance for under £1500. She is same age and lives in same town.

My quotes are anywhere between £2200 and £6000+.

What am I to do???

I have tried the recommended on here and cant get anywhere near the £1500 my friend paid.

Any help or companys to try would be appreciated..

Thank You

Regards

Jaydog...

[FROSTYBALLS]

A few points:

1. Insurers work on postcode areas - some postcodes incur higher insurance premiums than others. Although your friend may reside in the same town, her postcode may have a lower risk rating by the insurers.

2. What size insurance excess does she have? Having a high excess can lower premiums. One has to make a careful judgement between having a high excess and lowering the insurance premium, and having the excess at a level that one can afford to pay should a claim be made.

3. According to Which? visiting a broker can often provide young drivers with a cheaper quote than either going direct to an insurance company or using comparison sites.

4. Black box insurance - young drivers can secure lower premiums if they are deemed to be a safe driver by having a black box installed in their car. A black box uses GPS which transmit data back to the insurer (eg times of day you drive, average speeds, how many miles you drive, etc). The insurer can use this data to produce a 'driver score', which is then used to calculate your premium. Insurers like Directline, Tesco Bank, Co-operative Insurance, etc offer black box insurance.

5. Having an older more experienced, named driver on your policy may help lower your premium.

Don't be tempted to get your mom or dad to insure the car with you as second driver - it is the main driver who needs to be insured, and if the Aygo is your car, you will probably be the main driver.

Have you tried Toyota Owners Club insurance? See http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/155227-owners-club-insurance-click-here-to-see-if-you-could-save/

[Jaydog]

Thanks Frostyballs,

Some good info there.

I will keep trying.

I have tried the toyota insurance site with no luck im afraid....

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi and welcome,

Please feel free to give us a try for insurance if you like. If you wanted to private message me some contact details I'd be happy to arrange for one of my quotes team to give you a call back.

Regards,

Dan.

[Cyker]

If your parents have clean licences and no criminal convictions or medical things, try adding them as named drivers. Any other older relatives with the same are also a good bet!

I still have my mum on my insurance and it's saving me a hundred quid!

There are still some companies out there that specialise in female drivers (e.g. Diamond, Sheila's Wheels) but I'm told they can be a bit hit or miss.

Another one that may help is if you do a Pass Plus course, but that's more money to do and won't guarantee a significant discount (When I was looking, the only insurers that offered much discount were the ones that had the highest prices and even then it still wasn't anywhere near the cheapest! That said it may be different for you...)

The black box thing is a bit of a double-edged sword; It may be tempting but unless you already have an incredibly smooth and gentle driving style it may actually end up costing more.

Going for Third Party (Or Third Party, Fire and Theft) cover can be cheaper, but I find it's usually better going Fully Comp and jacking up the excess to get the premium down (The sweet spot for me back then was I think £450 or £500, but now it's £250).

It's definitely worth trying all the comparison sites to see which ones can get you the lowest, then play them off against each other, but also to get a good idea of what the going rate is.

It can get annoyingly tedious and time consuming, but most of us have been through this for the first 2-3 years of driving before the premium starts to come down...!

(I didn't even bother learning until I was 24 and I still found the premiums to be a bit excessive; I would never have been able to afford it at 18!)

[FROSTYBALLS]

On a 2014 Toyota Aygo Third Party insurance is definitely NOT what the poster should be considering.

[Jaydog]

Yep ,did try Dan but no luck....

[Jaydog]

Hi Guys,

result....!!!

My dad put me on a multi car policy with my mum. She was insured with (wont mention company as don't want to fall foul of any advertising rules..!!).

He phoned last night and got a quote of £1550 but when he phoned back today they had lost the details, so they went through the details again and it came out at £1300 fully comp!!! with mum and dad on policy also. Policy is in my name so I can build my own no claims up hopefully. Next time mum renews it will be for a few months worth then we start a new policy together in Dec 2015 with hopefully one years no claims for me.. Mum already has max no claims so she does not lose out.

Thanks Daddio..!!!

And thanks for the replies guys.

Regards

Jaydog.x

[FROSTYBALLS]

Well done!

[Cyker]

Oooh nice

I forgot about multi-car...

I love that they used the exact same details yet suddenly you are £250 better off!

[Jaydog]

Yep seems to change from one day to the next.

Caught them on the good day!!

Merry Xmas everyone.

[vincentfishing]

Good old dad, always there when you need them(hopefully) !

[Wiz201]

Age is going to be on my side this year, only £350 fully comp on the same car as you OP

[Jaydog]

:Dlucky you....

I guess I will have to keep paying and driving carefully until it comes down to somewhere reasonable....

[Cyker]

It is an annoying phase all of us have been through :(

Things don't really start to get more sane until you have more than 3 years no-claims and are 24 or over, but even getting 1 years no claims will start to chip away at the rip-off premiums!

Just remember to always shop around as a lot of insurance companies rely on people being too lazy to shop around and often charge well above the going rate come renewal day!

[TomdeGuerre]

My car insurance is due at he beginning of next month. Been doing some comparison so checked out MSE and got quotes ranging from £167 to over £2,000. wtf, what kind of businesses are these? I'm going to check out insurance through the TOC and see what that brings.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Insurance companies have a number of different customer groups they target, and criteria like age, postcode, occupation, type of vehicle, etc are all factors that they consider when deciding their target groups.

Those companies whose quotes are towards the top end price-wise, basically don't want your business as you fall outside one of the customer groups they target.

Out of 36 insurance companies assessed, the Which? Recommended Providers for car insurance are:

NFU Mutual (Which? score 82%)

John Lewis (76%)

LV (76%)

Saga (75%)

Scores based on a combination of customer satisfaction (customer service, complaints handling, transparency of charges, value for money, ability to manage online), and a score for the policy (including regulation by Financial Conduct Authority, renewal fees, personal belongings limit, interest charged on instalments, no fault NCD benefit, uninsured loss recovery, medical expenses limit, and liability limit for property damage).

Two other high scoring insurers who just missed out on being a recommended provider are:

Nationwide Building Society

Toyota Motor Insurance (not TOC)