Blog Post

How to get your insurance down as a new driver

For young people sometimes insurance policies are more costly than the car that needs to be insured.

For quite some time the only way to keep insurance premiums down was to install a black box which would limit you on speeds, have a time restriction on when you could drive and monitor your overall driving performance.

These black boxes aren’t always suitable for everybody due to those who work night shifts or have an emergency late at night and have to use the car to get to a hospital. This time restriction is something that has became less popular with black box providers after two boys in Glasgow died in a race to get home before their curfew.

Even so, without these black boxes new drivers who are the main driver on a policy are still seeing themselves being quoted up to £4000.

Here are some new technologies we have found and put together for you to consider after passing with us at Homers to keep your insurance at the best rate going. Hopefully they will rival the black box.

Dash Cams

Dash cams are extremely helpful in the event of a collision or a bump. Younger drivers are more often accused of being at fault, however with a dash cam installed the facts are recorded.

This is especially helpful for older drivers too as if there is something wrong with a persons car they sometimes try to create an incident in order to make a claim on the insurance policy instead of paying out themselves.

Dash cams are usually free with your policy and automatically start when you turn on your engine.

James Noble, the 24 year-old founder of MyFirst Insurance, believes young drivers are often blamed for accidents unfairly.

“The dash cam prevents this,” he says.

“It’s a set of eyes in the vehicle, like a parent or instructor alongside you, that will protect you in the event of a claim.”

However, don’t buy a dash cam yourself, as usually these policies require you to purchase a specific brand/ spec of camera in order to qualify on these policies.

Parent Policies

For most new drivers, it is still very tempting to get your parents to be the policyholder on their car. This does bring down insurance fees, however, if the policyholder isn’t the main driver and the newly passed named driver is and the insurance company find out, this could be classed as fraudulent activity and land you in hot water!

As well as this, when the newly passed driver does eventually get their own policy the insurance rate will still be very high.

Tips to keep your insurance down

• Try and work out exactly how many miles you will be doing before applying for your insurance policy.
• Pay a higher excess fee when making claims.
• Don’t be fooled into thinking that the most inexpensive cars will be cheaper to insure this is rarely the case due to the fact they are more likely to break down.