Insurance quotes?

Jack Guinea

Bright Spark
Found a really nice one last night and the insurance wasn't bad but it sounded like a scam when i emailed the seller as i pay them and they send it to me from Spain so....
 

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
Found a really nice one last night and the insurance wasn't bad but it sounded like a scam when i emailed the seller as i pay them and they send it to me from Spain so....

Hawkward...

What sort of budget are you looking at Jack? I've been trawling autotrader/ebay for the past year looking at 'small' cars so I might be able to give you a heads-up if I see or can think of anything.
 

Jack Guinea

Bright Spark
Well at first I was looking to pay £10k because on autotrader they have a quick insurance and it said for most car insurance was like £2k but my dreams were crushed last night. Ive decided not to spend all my money either as im going to need it for all other things so ive gone for a budget of 6-7k max including insurance. I found loads of nice cars last night for around £3 and insurance for all was £3 max.
 

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
Wow that's a fair amount for a first car, you should be able to pick up something decent for that. I'll have a look when I get chance :) Have you tried looking at MK4 Golfs, particularly the 1.4 petrols? They'd be cheap to insure as they're slow as heck but have a nice enough image to be a decent first car.

And in the mean time, give LV insurance a go. The cheapest I could find on comparisons was £3500 for my Punto. Whacked it into LV and it was £2200. Still expensive but it dropped a lot after the first year and now it's like £650 2 years later. Comparison sites are cheaper for me now on quicker cars whereas LV are a bit strict but they were certainly the cheapest I could find at the time for my Punto.
 

Jack Guinea

Bright Spark
Thanks for the advice, ive got a list on autotrader of a few cars such as ford fiesta. vauxhall astra and audi a1. Insurance is like £1000 cheaper if I have a tracker to my car to see how I drive but it could end up worse obviously if they don't like the way I drive. One thing I found weird is that we have a garage at out house but we don't use it, my mum said insurance should be cheaper if i say i lock my car in the garage but my quote went up by £900 instead.
 

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Aye sometimes (depending on many many factors) locking your car in a garage could be worse than (for example) leaving it on your street. Basically, if the car is on the street with other cars its more difficult if you house gets broken into for a thief to steal your car (with the random set of keys from the house), whereas if its in the garage its a bit easier. Obviously this might not be the case but its just another thing that makes insurance difficult to predict. Welcome to the world of cars, be prepared to spend a lot of cash :)
 

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
Thanks for the advice, ive got a list on autotrader of a few cars such as ford fiesta. vauxhall astra and audi a1. Insurance is like £1000 cheaper if I have a tracker to my car to see how I drive but it could end up worse obviously if they don't like the way I drive. One thing I found weird is that we have a garage at out house but we don't use it, my mum said insurance should be cheaper if i say i lock my car in the garage but my quote went up by £900 instead.

I'd avoid A1's just because of the badge and maintenance for a first car. I'd suggest looking at Focus's if you can, best handling car for that money and will have solid reliability.

I wouldn't be too scared of having a GPS fitted, realistically on a small engined car you'd struggle to break any of their 'rules' anyway. Acceleration is going to be slow, you're hardly going to corner too quickly unless you drive like an idiot, etc. I think the main reason they like GPS units is because they can see the hours you drive. If you're like me and mainly just use the car for commuting and going to mates during sensible hours then you'll be fine, however if you intend to hang around in car parks till 3am and do 90mph down dual carriageways till all hours then I'd avoid having one fitted x)

Like I said, I feared I wouldn't be able to drive how I wanted to if I had a tracker GPS thing fitted but in hindsight I don't think I'd have ever been penalised while using one anyway. If it's the only way to get it cheap then go for it :)
 

bigben

Master Poster
When I looked the first time I was told by 1 insurer that the cost of getting the tracker fitted would be more than the saving of having a tracker :S

realistically on a small engined car you'd struggle to break any of their 'rules' anyway.

My mate has a tracker in his car and the first week he had it he got a letter from his insurance company saying if he carried on driving the way he does his insurance would be invalidated :p I think the first day he had it he opened it up and was going high 90s though..

Definitely wouldn't want a tracker in my car though.
 

Grimezy

Prolific Poster
When I looked the first time I was told by 1 insurer that the cost of getting the tracker fitted would be more than the saving of having a tracker :S



My mate has a tracker in his car and the first week he had it he got a letter from his insurance company saying if he carried on driving the way he does his insurance would be invalidated :p I think the first day he had it he opened it up and was going high 90s though..

Definitely wouldn't want a tracker in my car though.

I do admit, when I looked the tracker quotes were identical, if not more expensive than standard quotes. Obviously they reviewed my driving score every 3 months or so and they'd decrease the price but they could also increase the price which wasn't very reassuring...

At least his insurance company didn't dob him into the police! Like I said, depends on the car. Anything with around 60bhp will be difficult to break too many rules and I don't think they track like every leg of the journey (say if you're doing 40 in a 30 or something). I think they base it more on your average speeds, average driving times and location of driving (I would assume more risk driving through cities everyday). My Punto takes a fair while to get into high 90's though :D Normally on a downhill motorway section...
 

Jack Guinea

Bright Spark
Another thing I might do to help with costs is do those 2 courses the advanced drivers one and the other, one of our IT teachers did a presentation about the advanced drivers course last month saying how it is pretty simple and it can decrease costs by a fair amount.
 

bigben

Master Poster
I did Pass Plus, not sure if it made much of a difference to price or not tbh. Definitely worth doing though just for the extra experience on motorways etc. People drive differently around you when you aren't in a marked driving instructors car.
 

Spangle

Member
My best advice on insurance is what ever you get get as much security on it as you can

A thatcham approved alarm will drop your insurance and while those quotes about the tracker drop it if you had a private tracker fitted (only activated when car is stolen) it drops because they can track the car and recover it

As far as claiming goes yes claim everything but when you ring up say your "thinking" about a mod how much will it go up, don't matter what it is, not I've done this

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Had the lambo's fitted thought better tell insurance company I had them fitted and they cancelled my insurance on the spot... 11 months into my years insurance so didn't gain that years no claims (which is another thing to build up so try and avoid the putting mum/dad/older person as main driver you as just named as you don't get any)

As said thou do try and claim as much as you can as insurance companies will try anything to not pay out so tell them anything your "planning" on not being standard, couple of things you can get away with is say if its standard on a better spec model as far as you know its standard on your spec as thats how you bought it ;)

But if anything does happen they will only pay out for whats insured so if you sub becimes

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I would make sure they know
 

Jack Guinea

Bright Spark
Thanks for the info and advice guys and nice speakers :). I really cannot wait to get on the road now im so excited!!!!
 

DaelpixPhotos

Super Star
I have my isurance coming up in 2 months. OH what fun that'll be!

Bought a new car in May, hopefully it won't have gone up much next year.
 

lewishollings

Bright Spark
I always found gocompare to be the best but looking for an insurance quote takes time! set yourself aside a couple of hours, get a pen and paper and use several different sites to get your quotes, compare sites first and individual sites later, I spent hours and hours looking for my insurance for the mini, was getting quotes of about £1500 to £1700... put the same details into aviva (usually expensive) and it gave me a quote of £1200 with breakdown cover!
 

bigben

Master Poster
Woohoo. Next years renewal is £200 cheaper when I changed my car :)

Yay!

I was looking at insurance for a 59 plate 1.6 fiesta (currently driving a 53 plate 1.1 c2) with all the same details as before- 2 years no claims etc and for some reason that piece was cheaper than what I paid last time even though the fiesta has 1.5x as many horses.. And it has a market value of about 7x as much as my c2 as well.
 
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