How high can a chicken jump?

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Edited the title of this as I'm now looking at the Co-op Young Driver policy and would be interested to know if anyone has any experience of it .

 

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YS will be starting driving lessons soon. He'll be leaving home in a year's time and he's not getting a car at the end of it so we just need insurance for while he's learning. I know it is is horrendously expensive for teenagers so can anyone give me some tips, suggestions, advice, etc?

 

Someone has told me Arnold Clark hire dual control cars out for about £9 an hour. That would save on insurance but would it be totally impractical to rely on a hire car for all the practice driving?

 

I know there have been threads about this before but I imagine things can change over time in this market!

[Snowy]

We made son have several lessons first, and only once his instructor felt he was competent to be running us about did we insure him. As it was only for occasional use, he was added as a named driver on hubbys insurance. We did that for a coule of years until the car became his and it is now in his own name. It has stayed around £1000 a year but should hopefully start to creep down now he is 20.

[chickencam]

How many cars do you have in the family? we have 3 and a Admiral Multicar policy which alowed ED to be a policy holder for one of the cars with me as a main driver and OH as a named driver too for about £600 more than I would have paid for just me and OH. This has meant that she has been earning no claims since February and now that she has passed we have paid another £117 on top until renewal next Feb. This is on a 2L car.

[sparkysmum]

Hi Vicki. One of my friends has arranged a great deal with I think Co - op insurance. Young Drivers policy ? They fit a black box thingy to your engine & if you & young driver have been driving sensibly you get money back but if not you have to pay extra. I think it only adds £400/ yr or thereabouts to your insurance. I was amazed. I can check this out & get back to you if you like. Alli x

[Purplemaniacs]

We found the insurance was not too bad when DS had a provisional license, it was when he passed his test that insurance was a real nightmare just so expensive. He drove our landrover when he needed a vehicle and was added to the insurance but it increased the premium by a large amount. Now he has his own car and insurance which is a lot, not sure how much, he is 20 now.

 

Chrissie

[Ain't Nobody Here]

We only have one car (a 10 year old Astra). I'll check with Direct Line (our current insurers) to see what they quote.

 

Alli, I'd definitely be interested in hearing about that . I wonder what constitutes "sensible driving"? I'm fairly sure we'd all qualify for that - we're not exactly boy racers .

 

We only have one car but we are a six bike family .

 

Edit:

Alli, I've been on the Co-op's website. I've been quoted £477 (might need to verify a few details) which doesn't sound too bad. Thanks for the suggestion .

[Valkyrie]

Ours was done with Direct Line - DD had her car fully comp for around £600. I think that was multi car too. First time she renewed it for herself this year and it came to £12 less this time now she has had a year accident free so building up her no claims bonus too. I did hear her chatting up the guy on the other end of the phone though!!!!

[Chickendoodle]

You can take out a policy for a learner driver through a company called Provisional Marmalade. The policy is taken out on a monthly basis and is in the name of the learner driver so any claim made will not affect your policy. It usually works out at £90 ish a month.

 

It is purely for a learner and as soon as the driver has passed his test the cover is invalid (ie he cannot even drive home from the test centre on it after passing)

[Cinnamon]

We did Young Marmalade too - I worked it out to be the most cost effective way for us to insure her,as a learner.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Thanks, I've had a look at that too. The Co-op still works out cheaper - £477 as long as we drive well (no pressure there then ).

 

You aren't insured to drive anyone else's car with this policy. Not an issue for us as the only other thing I drive is the school minibus but I'm covered by the Council's insurance.

 

I really can't see any reason not to go with the policy . Might just change the title of this thread to see if anyone has experience of it though!

[cathybc]

I got my first policy with the Co-Op because they gave new drivers some NCD straight away. I was about 30 though so so not a young driver!

 

I later worked for them and although that was some time ago - I left 6 years ago so things may have changed - they did genuinely try to deal with customers fairly (and I am not being bribed to say so - they made me redundant so there is no love lost!)

[sparkysmum]

Vicki, would you like to speak to my friend who has it for her son. I can pass you her info. Alli x

[Ain't Nobody Here]

That would be good, Alli, thanks . It just seems too good to be true so I'd really like to speak to someone who has used it!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Thanks to Alli, I spoke to her friend who has this policy and she seemed happy with it so I went ahead and bought it .

 

£479 per annum seems a bargain to me . They're coming to fit the gadget to my car next Friday (and then the careful driving commences ).

[Shirl]

So if you don't drive carefully what do they do? Put the premium up by £20 per "offence" or is there some other "fine" they impose? Are you limited to the time of day you drive?

[Ain't Nobody Here]

They review your driving every 90 days but will alert you if you aren't driving within the parameters set (speed limits/safe braking/corner handling) so you can modify your driving. You can monitor your own driving behaviour on an online "dashboard".

 

If you drive within their parameters you can earn 11% discount on your premium; if you don't it could go up.

 

You are also encouraged to drive between 6am and 11pm - the more you drive outwith these times, the more likely your premium is to go up (as that's when most accidents happen).

 

It'll be interesting to see how accurate they are for speed limits on the roads. I drive on a few roads daily where the speed limit can change 3 times on one road. Will they know that?

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Well, I've been driving with Big Brother in my glovebox for a fortnight now .

 

I'm pleased to report that I am getting "Excellent" on my online "dashboard" . (It's strangely compulsive, checking your readings .)

 

It's been touch and go though . My braking and accelerating was only "Good" till I worked out that driving over speed bumps in my estate numerous times a day requires a steady speed rather than gentle slowing and speeding up.

 

I also went round a roundabout a bit wildly at the beginning and that skewed my reading .

[sadietoo]

Well, I've been driving with Big Brother in my glovebox for a fortnight now .

 

I'm pleased to report that I am getting "Excellent" on my online "dashboard" . (It's strangely compulsive, checking your readings .)

 

It's been touch and go though . My braking and accelerating was only "Good" till I worked out that driving over speed bumps in my estate numerous times a day requires a steady speed rather than gentle slowing and speeding up.

 

I also went round a roundabout a bit wildly at the beginning and that skewed my reading .

 

I'd be interested to know how you get on with this. DD has always been on our car insurance, but we have recently changed our car, and so for me to have any NCD on the new car we've had to cancel the insurance on the 10 year old fiesta I was sharing with her before. We are looking at the Co-op young driver insurance for her and the fiesta...hopefully as she doesn't drive it that often (can't afford to take it back to Uni) it shouldn't be too bad. She does do a fair amount of running around after 11pm though......usually alone, but it's always late when she gets back from friends..she'll have to stay over more often!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

It seems good so far - I'll let you know if the discount does actually materialise .

 

Very cross with OH . He drove the car for the first time since the GPS went in and he's ruined my perfect "speed" score by getting less than the max of 5 . His cornering leaves something to be desired too . Average still shows up as "excellent" thankfully!

[Purplemaniacs]

I went out with a friend for coffee this morning and we went in her son's car. She said its ok the black box is being fitted next week.

 

She said that other quotes were £5,000 for a year the box dropped it to £1,500. Still a lot of money

 

He is a new driver has passed his test and bought a car, a clio so nothing sporty

 

Chrissie

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Gosh, that is still a lot . Is that because it's a new car as well as him being newly qualified too, I wonder?

 

We're only paying £457 .

[Purplemaniacs]

Gosh that is a difference in price. He is a new driver, we found that insurance for DS on my car was much cheaper when he had a provisional license, it went up a lot once he had passed his test and had a full license.

 

The car is a Clio about four years old I think but my friend said it made very little difference the age of the car.

 

Chrissie

[Lewis]

Don't like the idea of a Big Brother black box, hope that doesn't mean I'm an awful driver!

Have to admit to going over speed limit sometimes, mainly on the motorway ... not good though I know!

 

I did 9,000+ miles driving (mostly to work) over Summer + I do a lot of driving between 11-6 so guess my premium would go up with it anyway. Not sure all the miles are a good thing for getting insurance either.

 

Still really tempted to buy a car early next year/Easter time so I can use it for Lambing, have a few weeks of exams and then have it over Summer. Need to see if I can afford it all first!

[freddie]

our young apprentice has just passed his test, bought a T reg micra 1.1, and the insurance is still horrendous because he's 17. It does seem a bit unfair to the young ones trying to make their way in the world.

[Chickendoodle]

I can see things from the other side as I work in insurance. The problem is that young men tend to have a lot of accidents statistically. I know people think the premiums are extortionate and that you are paying more than the car is worth in insurance but the value of the car has little impact on the premiums - it is the cost of injury claims and damage to other people's vehicles.

Young men who have accidents invariably have passengers. The cost of an average whiplash claim is £2000 odd. That represents a very minor injury and you only have to add in broken bones and worse and you very rapidly get to a huge claim. If you take a relatively minor fault accident with a driver, one passenger and another vehicle involved you could have 3 whiplash claims (passenger and third party driver with passenger) and you would already have £6000 or so for the injuries and any amount for the damage to the other vehicle. The person who caused the accident would usually never know the total cost of the claim as the Insurers don't tend to tell you. You might think you had a small accident but the claim cost to the Insurers might have been £10,000 !

 

There are also costs that you don't think about - a client of ours hit a parked car (a Porsche), causing relatively minor damage. The repairs took a long time and the owner of the Porsche insisted that because of his status he had to hire a similar vehicle. The hire costs were over £8000!

 

I know that there are many many young men who are very careful drivers and never have an accident but unfortunately the very large claims statistically make their age group a huge risk. If the premiums were not done on an age related basis we would all be paying much more as Insurance companies are businesses after all and have to make a profit.

 

A lot of the responsibility lays with the "no win no fee" culture as everyone now will try for damages - a lot of the time it is cheaper for the Insurers to pay out than to fight it in court.

 

I feel really sorry for the careful young male drivers as they are being penalised for the reckless ones but there is no obvious solution.

 

Also, at the end of the year the Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate over gender (EU legislation, never mind statistics !). Haven't seen the impact yet but it is very unlikely that the Insurers will reduce the boy's premiums to match the girl's. Much more likely that girls will have to pay more