Young driver insurance bomb

Young driver insurance prices go through the roof as specialist young driver insurer Quinn goes into administration.

In FirstTimeDriver’s spring 2010 Young Driver Insurance price guide, Quinn Direct came out consistently as the lowest cost provider for first year insurance for newly qualified drivers. But with Quinn unable to write any new business (except provisional driver cover) we have rerun the research using the leading insurance comparison sites Comparethemarket.com and GoCompare.com to see what the best deals available now are. We were shocked to see massive increases in premiums over those previously quoted; for example:

Premiums for young female drivers are also up around 40% on those previously quoted by Quinn.

It’s not only 1^st year premiums that have dramatically increased. Previously a young driver with a good first year driving record and no claims could expect to see their insurance on a Vauxhall Corsa drop around £1000 to around £783 for third party fire and theft cover. The best quote we could get yesterday for an equivalent risk was not £1,710 – almost £1000 more!

First Time Driver researcher Ben (my 17 year old son) is learning to drive in a Y reg. diesel Ford Mondeo. The plan was that he can use this to get to college and work once he passed his driving test. Previously with Quinn we had been quoted about £1700 third party fire and theft.

Insurance industry effects

This is not just bad for the newly qualified drivers.  The driver training industry employs around 95,000 people, with over a million people learning to drive and 650,000 who go on to pass their test each year, many of whom will purchase cars, road tax, servicing, etc. If they can’t get affordable insurance at the end of it then one of two things is going to happen: either they will take the risks and join the ranks of uninsured drivers (approx. 1 in 5 young drivers have no insurance vs. 1 in 20 other drivers nationally) or they will simply put off learning to drive until they can afford to. This is bad news for the driver training and motor industry that is already struggling to recover from the recession.

We simply can’t afford these astronomic insurance prices and will have to look again at options for Ben. Ben lives in a rural area with little in the way of public transport where, being able to drive means access to college, work and life generally.

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