How to cut the cost of car insurance for a young driver

A bit of a sickener isn't it; the car cost you £1500 but the insurance cost £2500! Don't worry though, there are a few things that you can do to bring this down considerably.

Insurance companies work out their premiums based on their expected risk and whether we like it or not young and inexperienced drivers carry the biggest risks of all. What you have to do now is surely insurance company that you are nowhere near as big a risk as everyone else in your age and experience group; and the first thing you must do is take a long and hard look at the type of car that you are proposing to drive. Generally speaking, the bigger, more powerful and more expensive it is, the higher the insurance bracket will be and the more you will have to pay. It's best to swallow your pride a while and settle for a low powered old banger for your first year at least, making sure of course that it is fully roadworthy.

Every time you fill in an insurance proposal form there will be a minimum policy excess that you have to pay out of every claim; this is normally around £100 or so but varies from one insurance company to another. Most insurers allow you to offer to pay an additional voluntary excess and provided that you are happy that you would be able to afford this in the event of a claim you could offer a considerable extra excess; this could reduce your premium is quite substantially.

Insurers like to see that you are driving safely, which is why they give no claims discounts and these can be quite substantial so it is important that you do not make any claims and if you are involved in a minor accident which is your fault you may well consider paying for it yourself, because if you do make a claim against your policy the next quotation you get at renewal time will reflect this.

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It is very tempting to put your right foot down and there are very few drivers but never break speed limits but do bear in mind that if you collect any penalty points you may well find that insurance in the future will not only be prohibitively expensive, but may even be completely unobtainable. Don't speed, drive carefully and do not under any circumstances even think about driving after an alcoholic drink; both the law and the insurance companies will throw the book at you.

Persuade someone who is older and has more driving experience to be nominated on the policy as a second driver. Many insurance companies are happier if they feel that the card will be driven by a more experienced driver on occasions.

Every now and again there is a craze for modifying cars to make them more personalised; don't do it, insurers do not like modified vehicles particularly when they are driven by young drivers.

Finally consider taking a Pass Plus course, which is a training course designed to give new drivers some experience in driving under a more difficult conditions such as night time, bad weather and motorway usage. The cost of this varies from authority to authority; a ballpark figure is about £100 but some local authorities subsidises this fee. Even if you have to pay it all yourself however, you may well find that the cost of it is more than covered by the reduction you can get in your insurance premium, and you are less likely to be involved in an accident or suffer injury yourself.