We've been hearing a lot about sky-rocketing car insurance premiums lately, especially for young people. We're going to explore this further, and want to hear about your experiences.

A car is essential for lots of rural famililes to get around - but has it become prohibitively expensive to run a car in the countryside? Have you had any outrageous insurance quotes? Have you noticed premiums rising? Or are rising fuel costs a bigger problem?

its not so much the petrol/diesel, when you look at how they go about getting it etc, petrol is bloody cheap( taking out the tax).  Its just solely the insurance, I was talking to a bloke the other day, his daughter had just passed her test, had a 1.0L corsa, which is 3 cylinders, and couldnt pull the skin off a rice pudding her quote was over 2 grand( i cant remember how much exactly), she was 17, im 19 i got a quote for a 1.8 astra and that was 2700 squids, its an absolute joke.  nowadays its everyone against young people, work, insurance and life in general. 

An 18 year old lad near here has bought an old 1300 fiesta (the standard 'just passed your test' car when I was 17) and very lovingly done it up to a smart, unmodified first car. His quote: £5500!!

He has bought a 125cc motorbike instead. It's far cheaper, and I think I would be doing the same if I was in his position, but I doubt it's safer.

Don't get me started ! Insurance companies are ripping off teenagers with their extortionate premiums. My two boys are paying far more annually than their cars are worth. The eldest wrote his car off and has been clobbered. Wouldn't have minded so much if the accident had been his fault.

car insurance for us teenagers takes the ****,My brother and i need our car to get around and they bloody well know it.

the two of us share a car we own a 1990 ish peugeot 205 XLD 1.8 deisle and we wouldnt swap it for ort else.it costs us £3200ish to insure the two of us for a year,when i passed mine test befor my brother the insurance was £2000 when he passed it rocketed up to £6500,we couldnt afford that and we told the bloody company that(they couldnt give a s**t)we told them were to stick it,we found our currant quote and cancelled that expensive one.the old insurering company charged us £600 for cancaling with them,the new insurers then charged us £900 for the fuirst installment an they now charge £335 per month.

The other annoying thing is when i drive into college you can tell whos perants have bought there cars and insured for them,they then complain that they dont like what theve got.

 It is absolutly rediculas how they think people of my age can afford to spend that on isnurance.

In response to the young lad who was quoted 9k for his Land Rover - I've got our Landy insured under classic car insurance (its an oldie!) and it was MUCH cheaper than going down the regular route.

Mine went up about £40 last September.  Same car, same policy, no claims, but it went up anway.  And I know a girl who was quoted 12k for a second hand Astra, even the rep said it was ridiculous.

I think car insurance is total extortion, how can the government say you must legally have something then leave it up to private companies to stipulate the cost?  They should provide some alternative, if even just for those who've never made a claim.

 

Put in claim to the NFU [or any other insurer for that matter] and it is usually passed on to a claim management company[CMC]. There is your problem in a nutshell. We had a tractor and trailer smashed up the rear and a replacement tractor was hired in while ours was repaired. We sorted out the hire tractor from a local firm beacuse the CMC didn't know where to get one from at short notice. It was a 100hp Valtra which was £270/week to hire. The CMC charged the other drivers' insurance company £1500/week for this tractor. This is the business to be in! The NFU said that all was charged was the industry standard fee. What a load of b*********ks.Also on top of this were all the CMC fees! This is just the sort of practice that is causing all insurance premiums to rocket, not just young drivers. The government has got to get a grip of this fast. If the mafia did this I wouldn't be suprised. But the NFU? Shoddy!

I can be a little bit understanding with the insurance companys here although the amounts the quote are exccessive i live very close to a ag college in sussex and i know exactly when a student !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is driving 3 friends in the front and driving like an idiot . Modified and not notified  is another thing wheel spacers , wide tyres all add to poor handling landrovers . On a narrow country road and stupid speeds add up to one thing .  Black box recorders for young drivers if they cannot drive well make them

 

Tractor - 40 quid with the nfu, sorted. On a serious note though it is beyond a joke. Could get a Trantor and i was looking at a leyland 262h. If you unblock top gear they do about 40mph.

welshnwilling - regarding your comment about the insurance being more than the cars are worth. I am an agent with the NFU Mutual and generally the value of the car has very little to do with the premium. An insurer is less concerned about having to pay a couple of thousand to replace a written-off car than with the tens of millions it may cost in Personal Injury and Compensation claims if one of their drivers crashes into a bus stop or writes off a car and, theoretically, kills / injures a number of people. An occurance which is, statistically, more likely to happen with young drivers. This is why it is now not much more expensive to go Fully Comprehensive, as Third Party Only is where the big pay-outs come from. This is also why when you hit 25 years old your premium will plummet.

The best advice regarding high young driver premiums is to telephone your insurer to ascertain what they are looking for to reduce the risk. Ask them which cars are generally cheaper to insure - non turbo diesels seem about the best at the moment from what I've seen. Ask what discount they give for a Pass Plus scheme, often the cost of doing the course is more than offset by the savings on your insurance premium. If you're with a decent insurer then they will generally want your business and will give what advice they can to keep the premium as low as possible. Note I say "low", not "cheap" ! I hope this is of some use - still not the answer most are looking to hear, I appreciate.

hi, I'm adam the guy in question that got the £9k quote. I've just had the ITV local Anglia news journalist round doing a short piece following on from the story, which should be on tonight at 6pm-ish, and bbc radio cambridgeshire have asked me to do a short interview tomorrow morning at 7:30am for anyone whos interested and really has nothing better to do!!!

According to one newspaper report motor premiums have increased by 40% during the last 12 months, and the reason is primarily the spiralling cost of motor claims, particularly claims for personal injury. A typical whiplash injury for a single individual can add £4,000 to the cost of a claim. Moreover, a host or claims management companies, such as solicitors, credit hire companies, repairers and even other insurers have got into the process of managing a customer's claim, each of them taking a fee for their services, so it's little wonder that most motor insurers made a thumping loss last year.  

We insurers must do what we can to keep costs under control, however, the problem also reflects the broader issue of the growth of a compensation culture, where we are encouraged to find someone to blame for every accident; with that blame comes potential financial gain. Not only has this increased the amount of fraud (such as staged accidents with four people in each car), but it has changed the way we think about accidents. Twenty years ago, accidents were often seen as simply bad luck.  Nowadays tripping on a pavement is an opportunity to gain compensation, and a whole industry has sprung up to handle those claims. In the end, the cost of the compensation culture is paid for by everyone, through higher premiums, and we must ask ourselves: Are we, as a society, happy about that?

Simon Stevens

MD Rural Insurance

My view on the matter is now at www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/college-calendar.

We have just had a  quote from Aviva for our old Land Rover, £469.95p. third party.  Its a J reg Disco used around the smallholding - and I am a pensioner with a completely clean driving record!!! When querying it they tell me that insursance has gone up. The car can't be worth more than a few hundred pounds. I think this is encouraging people to drive uninsured. not that I am going to!!)

Yes, but on the flip side

We have a neighbour, suffered post traumatic stress from an accident he caused himself.

Don't think £500 will go far to satisfy him?

Hardly pay the postage for the solicitor's letters

a few weeks ago i passed my driving test and ever since i have been looking for some form of insurance for any car. so far i have had a quote for £20,000 for my mums 998cc 1999 nissan micra, £23,000 for a 1.2 litre fiat punto and many more. i began thinking that it might be a better idea to get a small van or something so that i could throw some tools in the back and go and do some work out of, i decided to get a quote for a ford fiesta van which was £28,000, the man on the other end of the phone thought it seemed quite reasonable because iv not got much experience and vans are supposedly more expensive to insure. i understand that statistically 17 to 25 year olds are twice as likely to have an accident than people over 35s but what is realy annoying me is that the quotes i am getting are far more than twice as much as id imagine they would be for someone over 35. i am studying agricultural engineering at an agricultural college and most people doing my course or agriculture etc have bought and insured there own cars and are constantly maintaining or repairing them as they cannot afford to have a newer and more reliable car. i know that if someone on my course or one similar was to have an accident then under no circumstances, unless there was someone else involved then they wouldnt dream of telling the insurance company because of the ammount that their premiums would increase. it would be cheaper to either fix the old car or scrap it and get a new one. as i understand it most people have insured their cars under the farm insurance or as a named driver on a parents policy, either of which would significantly reduce the price but as i have not got a farm and i would like to build up my own no claims as well as being a named driver but still using the vehicle as your own is a bit of a grey area i would prefer to get my own insurance. if anyone has any recomendations then i would love to hear them. Sam

After passing my test on the 16th September 2011, I struggled to find a cheap car that I could afford the insurance on....after 3 weeks of searching I found a Renault Clio 1.2 Petrol for sale at £1180! My insurance quote .... £2196.50 for 12 months - the cheapest I had found for any car, from any company!

 After buying the car I phone the insurance company - who after an hour long chat then told me that my quote had risen to £3073.52 for 12 months!!! I was very hesitant to pay for this, but was desperate to get on the road - so reluctantly I agreed!

 Less than 24 hours of being on the road with my car, my car had been written off by some complete W**ker that was driving FAR TOO FAST for the road conditions and spun out smashing straight into me - he accepted FULL liability for the accident.

His car had also been written off so we were both going to be out of pocket one way or another.

After speaking to my insurance company they told me that because my policy is only TPF&T I couldnt claim off my own insurance for my damage - the reason im not Fully Comp Mr. Insurance Man is because its so damn expensive!!!

With the other driver not wanting to go through insurers, im now left to foot the £1000+ bill to fix my car....which to put it bluntly, I dont have!

Anyone got any advice on what to do?

It's not up to him wether or not he chooses to go through his insurer you must contact his insurer immediately or you wont get any money?

 

 

 

 

Does anyone know of how much a land rover defender 90's insurance be for an 18 year old? Could it be insured as an agricultural vehicle to make the insurance cheaper?

i have a fourtrack, comercial a 6grand tractor plus a 1 grand atv on a fleet policy, insured with same company for about ten years im mid thirtys n paying just under £600, which i thought was very expencive but looks like a bargin compared to others, i did enquire abovt a land rover 90 n thats the cheapest of all n about £100 cheaper

 if i was 17 again i think i would buy a fasttrack