Financial matters

Historically getting your own vehicle has been a “coming of age” process for many young drivers and nowadays many more young people than ever are looking for a young driver insurance quote. To make it clear, a “young driver” in terms of car insurance is anyone under 25. Car insurance rates drop dramatically over the age of 25 and reduce even more over 35-40. Young drivers traditionally have been hit hard with car insurance premiums, particularly the under 19 age groups as statistically this age group is shown to be three times more likely to be involved in an accident.

We recommend that all young drivers get insurance quotes prior to purchasing a vehicle, the stories you may have heard about people buying sports cars or hot hatches only to find that the insurance premiums are more expensive than the purchase price of the car are not urban myths (this author remembers getting a quote for a Ford Sierra Cosworth back in the 90’s where the insurance quote was 50% more than the car purchase price!)

Dont set your heart on a vehicle without knowing insurance costs beforehand, do some research on used cars and their specifications, most car

magazines have details of insurance groups most models and as a general rule of thumb avoid any car with an insurance group of 10 or more if under 25, if under 19 avoid vehicles with a grouping of 8 or higher. Dont be fooled by monthly figures either, many first time car owners are ill prepared for the financial outlay involved and underestimate the total costs, consumables like tyres, exhausts, brake pads and disks, headlight bulbs, oil and filters etc can add up to a significant amount of money over the year in addition to finance/HP/loan repayments, MOT and servicing. A hefty monthly insurance premium in addition to all the other rising costs of motoring (such as petrol/diesel) can be too much, especially for younger drivers which tend to be on lower incomes in the first place.

By doing some research you can find cars that have sporty characteristics to satisfy your driving requirements that are not in excessively high insurance groups. Obviously there are certain cars which will never be cheap for young driver insurance (or older drivers to a certain extent!) such as Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Evo, Nissan Skyline etc and anything with the name Cosworth or GTI on it!

While we have to accept that certain models of car are going to be more expensive than others, that does not mean paying through the nose for it, there are a number of specialist brokers online who can in some cases offer considerable savings, thats not so say you will ever get cheap young driver insurance on (say) a Ferrari 355! But relatively speaking some of these young driver motor insurance brokers can save a considerable amount of money on a young driver insurance quote.

Many of these regularly advertise in Max Power, Fast Ford, Total Vauxhall and other motoring magazines popular with young drivers and will offer you a cheap young driver insurance quote. But the easiest way is to search for young driver specialists online. As always make sure you read the small print before entering into any financial contract.