The Student Room Group

What is going on with insurance prices!

Okay so a bit of a long post but bear with me.

Basically the entire insurance thing seems confusing. I go on a price comparison site and check out a car I found, the insurance prices come up at somewhere around £2k. this is for a 1.6 litre engine car. I change the car to a 1.4 litre engine the price goes down to £1.6k ish. But here is the confusing part, I change the car again for the third time to a 1.2l model and the price for the insurance is £1.8k. So what is going on? I thought having a smaller engine would lower the premium?

The other thing I want to ask is, how the hell do people find cheap insurance? I'v read that some people have had premiums of £1k and so on, but the lowest I ever found was £1.4k so am I doing something differently? I know the area that one lives in can affect premiums and so on, but I see nothing wrong with the area i'm in.

Incase you guys want to know, I'm a new driver (21 in may), just passed my driving test 3 weeks ago (this is something they also ask about when your looking for insurance, that is how long have you held your driving license for).

So any ideas? Also anyone got any tips on how they got insured for their first car? I asked a couple of my friends and most of them have had block boxes fited to the car so is that a route i'm most likely going to be taking too? Alot of people have been advising me against black box insurance tho for some reason.

Thanks!
Original post by ramo55
I go on a price comparison site and check out a car I found, the insurance prices come up at somewhere around £2k. this is for a 1.6 litre engine car. I change the car to a 1.4 litre engine the price goes down to £1.6k ish. But here is the confusing part, I change the car again for the third time to a 1.2l model and the price for the insurance is £1.8k. So what is going on? I thought having a smaller engine would lower the premium?
Thanks!


It is likely that the vehicle type has something to do with it. It's not just engine size that matters, but also vehicles that are known for being driven as first cars (eg Corsa, Ka, Fiesta etc) could end up with higher premiums than those that aren't.

For example, you may find that a VW Zafira could have lower premiums than a VW Punto, despite the Punto having a smaller engine size. It will depend on how the insurance company calculates prices.
Reply 2
If car A with the 1.4 engine is more popular with young drivers and is statistically more likely to be in an accident, it will likely attract a higher insurance premium than car B with a 1.6 engine, assuming the cars to be of a similar value. A lot of things to into calculating insurance premiums, not just engine size.
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 3
You can check which insurance group a car is in. http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/insurance/car-insurance-groups/

The higher the group, the more expensive it'll be. My first car was a 1.8L Toyota Corolla, it was cheap to insure because it was a family car and seen as lower risk.

Original post by ramo55

The other thing I want to ask is, how the hell do people find cheap insurance? I'v read that some people have had premiums of £1k and so on, but the lowest I ever found was £1.4k so am I doing something differently? I know the area that one lives in can affect premiums and so on, but I see nothing wrong with the area i'm in.


There's things you can do to make it cheaper. Generally you have a lot more leverage if you're renewing rather than taking it out first time as you can negotiate. That's how I got from a £2200 quote down to £1000. Moving to London alone put the price up £700.

For example, get them to try and match quotes, this is going to be one of the biggest savers if you prefer a specific insurer. You can also commit to less annual mileage, say, 9000 miles instead of the standard 10k. Paying annually instead of monthly also nets you a discount of around £100. I've also had discounts from insurers over the phone of upto £175 in one go just because they wanted the business. Everything adds up. As a young driver, I think black box is a solid way to get your premium down and gets you into good driving habits early on, so it's not such a bad thing.
Original post by ramo55
Okay so a bit of a long post but bear with me.

Basically the entire insurance thing seems confusing. I go on a price comparison site and check out a car I found, the insurance prices come up at somewhere around £2k. this is for a 1.6 litre engine car. I change the car to a 1.4 litre engine the price goes down to £1.6k ish. But here is the confusing part, I change the car again for the third time to a 1.2l model and the price for the insurance is £1.8k. So what is going on? I thought having a smaller engine would lower the premium?

The other thing I want to ask is, how the hell do people find cheap insurance? I'v read that some people have had premiums of £1k and so on, but the lowest I ever found was £1.4k so am I doing something differently? I know the area that one lives in can affect premiums and so on, but I see nothing wrong with the area i'm in.

Incase you guys want to know, I'm a new driver (21 in may), just passed my driving test 3 weeks ago (this is something they also ask about when your looking for insurance, that is how long have you held your driving license for).

So any ideas? Also anyone got any tips on how they got insured for their first car? I asked a couple of my friends and most of them have had block boxes fited to the car so is that a route i'm most likely going to be taking too? Alot of people have been advising me against black box insurance tho for some reason.

Thanks!


If you are 21 in may then it might be worth waiting until then, as your insurance goes down at 21 (and again at 25).
My one bit of advice would be to ring up insurance companies directly, don't settle for online prices. In fact it's better to just ring them without putting in your details online. It's much more time consuming but you'll 100% come out with a better deal in the end. So ring up one get a quote, say you'll get back to them, ring up another see what their quote is and then haggle by using the quote you have from the other place (if less), then call the other place back saying you have a better quote, they will most likely then lower their original one. Do this with a number of different companies.
My first insurance was £412 when i was 19, bearing in mind i had passed 2 years before but no driving since then, suzuki alto 1.1 litre. I got down an original quote of £700 to the £412 by haggling.
Also (i didnt do this as it wasnt cheaper but often is) have you looked into multicar insurance with your parents? This can reduce insurance costs quite a bit.

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