First Car Insurance

Every year thousands of people pass their driving tests. Learning to drive is not a cheap process but it is nothing compared to the costs of getting your first car and getting insured upon it. Car insurance for young people is an incredibly expensive proposition, and with the high price of running a car let alone buying one, it’s important to minimise the costs of insurance as far as possible.

The first thing to do, however, is to accept that the cost of insurance may well be high. Reports suggest that in the wake of the credit crunch many people are lying on their insurance applications to get cheaper policies. However, insurance companies may well completely reject any claims that you make on the grounds of original information being inaccurate, so make sure that you are honest and get the correct amount of protection for your needs.

Car insurance for young drivers is so expensive because young drivers are perceived to be a high risk group. Accident statistics suggest that drivers under the age of 21 are ten times more likely to be killed or seriously injured in an accident than those over the age of 35. Generally speaking not only to younger drivers make more claims, the claims are also more expensive. This all costs the insurers more money and therefore the premiums are higher to make sure that they aren’t left out of pocket.

You can look for specific younger driver policies, these are still expensive but allow you to build up a no claims discount quicker than might otherwise be the case, and so will result in cheaper policies in the long run.

Insurance companies calculate premiums by working out the risk to which you are exposed and balancing it against the value of the car. Therefore if you reduce the risk or the value of the car, you will see benefits in the price of your policy. It might be worthwhile, then, getting a small first car with a less powerful engine, as this will save you money. Also you could add your parents onto the policy, as having safe older drivers listed on the policy will often reduce the premiums, even if they don’t use the car very often.

There are other potentially worthwhile options out there; often insurers will offer a reduced rate if you purchase a policy online. Kwik Fit Insurance for instance will give you a 20% discount as well as 10% off at Kwik Fit centres, which could lead to significant savings on any future repairs and servicing. You can find out more about their car insurance policies on the Kwik Fit insurance website.

Another thing that you could do is to take the Pass Plus scheme. It costs around £200 and can knock three times this much off your insurance policy as you are deemed to be a safer and more advanced driver. If nothing else it will also give you experience of motorway driving, which is where the majority of accidents are experienced.