That sphincter-tightening time has arrived regarding arranging insurance for my 18 year-old son. I feel that - despite my best tightwad efforts - I'm in for a wallet-squeezing experience!
He's still learning to drive at the moment, but both my jalopies are large automatics. The plan is to mothball one of them and for me to buy a more learner-friendly jalopy with a manual gearbox. This will allow him to augment his lessons - though whether he'll listen to me is anyone's guess :-)
His medium-term plans are unclear (surprise, surprise), so I don't know whether I need to buy something which he'll be able to insure in his own right on gaining his full licence.
What I need to know is the rate of rise in insurance cost versus vehicle group - particularly at the lower end of the scale. Is there much difference between, say, groups 1 to 4 in percentage terms (I know it'll be high, whatever!). Is there an insurance group 'ceiling', above which the Ins. Co's will simply refuse to quote?
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Let him learn to stand on his own two feet and buy (and insure) his own car. It's a good job he wasn't 18 during WWII. Teenagers grew up fast in those days. They had to.
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What's the War got to do with it? I bought and insured my own car aged 18 in 1988.
Paper round and Saturday/evening job money over 4/5 years. Still got my A levels and went to university too. And then worked through that to pay for cars, insurance and the like.
I wanted wheels so much, and knew my Mum wasn't going to support it. So I did it myself. Doesn't take a World War to motivate some teenagers.
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D'oh - wrong thread.
Last edited by: Alfa Floor on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 15:27
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>> It's a good job he wasn't 18 during WWII. Teenagers grew up fast
>> in those days. They had to.
Well, I think it is more that the country needed them to, and gave them the opportunity to prove what they could do. If you are 18 now, everybody thinks you are a stupid kid, who can just about flip a burger.
When Hitler decided to spice things up a bit, suddenly the country decided that 18 year old were actually highly competent individuals who, if given the responsibility of flying a plane, leading men into battle, or just get blown up, could actually rise to the challenge.
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>> What I need to know is the rate of rise in insurance cost versus vehicle
>> group
On some of the comparison websites it's quite easy to get a quote and then change the details to see what difference it makes.
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It will be very expensive. It is the risk of them crashing to Wayne Rooney and making him injured the season.
Also a lot DOES depend on the value of the car not just the group. My Panda will be group 1 but still costs a lot more to insure than my dads 13 year old Fiesta.
Car insurance is one of the most complicated things ever especialy when you have complex needs such as myself. One car, two different busiensses, two drivers.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 13:35
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A friend of ours has been through this recently
his solution was to insure his son for his (the dad's) ageing volvo estate with an ins company that would allow the son to accumulate NCD (possibly directline)
add on cost for the son was minimal - maybe beacuse no self-respecting 18year old would take it for a show off burn
The 18 year old hardly drove in the year due to college, drinking nights etc, but at the end had 1 year claim free experience & NCD and could afford to buy and insure something sensible for himself.
Dan
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My son is 20. First year, clio 1.2 £1800
second year clio 1.8 sport thing £1800
thrid year Cavalier 1.6 worth didly squat, £1000
all third party
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 30 Mar 10 at 17:48
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All talk of teenagers' insurance scares me. In 20 years of car ownership my annual insurance premiums were always around the £250 mark, no matter what I was driving. It's only since turning 35 that they've fallen off a bit (£150 last year). 17 yr old me in 1990, driving a 1.1 Allegro, full licence for about 3 weeks, premium £250 TPFT. 18 yr old me, 1.6 Cavalier, 1 year NCB, premium £240 TPFT. Heaven help me when my kids are driving, only another 5 years until the first one's old enough!
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You should worry. We've got twins and 4 years to go. :-{
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Its why most people I know don't start driving until their 20 or so.
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Yes, that's how I remember it too, Dave_TD - I don't recall ever buying a car with insurance cost as a top prority. Sadly, things seem a bit different nowadays :-(
I would still like him to obtain his full licence as soon as possible - even though he may not end up driving until he's a bit older, as R&S indicates.
Oh, SteelSpark, I couldn't agree more.....
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5 years ago the difference was minimal between 1 and 4 - can't remember how much, less than 10% IIRC. Ended up with a 1996 1.4 Megane which is group 4. OK to drive and good safety rating. Not so good for tall drivers. I know that I checked a few cars out at the time and I was surprised how little the difference was between 1 and 4. As someone else suggested, try a few online quotes.
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Thanks, Mike. Funny you should mention the Mégane - it's one of the 'possibles' on my list. I've noticed some quite large disparities in IGs amongst what look like pretty similar cars based on their performance capabilities - the other factors (cost of repair etc) must be quite significant, I guess.
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The main thing to avoid is being caught "fronting" - that can have very nasty consequences.
Things were different in my day; a heavily-modded Victor FB 3.3ltr at 17; a Rover 3500S at 18; a BMW 3.0Si at 20 and a 3.0 CSL at 22 - and I never paid more than £250 fully-comp for any of them.
You didn't need to be even 18 in WW1 - my father, with the Post Office Rifles, went over the top at Ypres and actually walked towards the German guns at the ripe old age of 16. [Today's kids would need a lifetime of therapy after that...]
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>> The main thing to avoid is being caught "fronting" - that can have very nasty
>> consequences.
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Absolutely - but even so, if the insurance is in your son's name, just make sure you put yourself and wife on as named drivers - brings the premium down.
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Insurance groups and 18 year-old lads - L'escargot
