Young seek cheaper solution

New research from Gocompare.com Car Insurance has revealed that the cost of getting a young driver on the road has fallen by 11% to £5,733, compared to £6,455 last year.

It claims the £722 drop can be attributed to a significant reduction in the amount of money being spent on first cars plus a £41 drop in the average cheapest car insurance premium for a 17 year old driver.

To help keep the cost of getting on the road in check, young drivers and parents are spending on average £3,006 on a first car, a substantial drop from £3,685 last year. However, this is still over £500 more than the average of £2,477 spent on a first car in 2009.

The average cheapest car insurance premium for a 17 year old driver has fallen by around 19% since 2009, moving from £2,477 then to £1,994 now. However, the cost of car insurance for a 17 year old driver still constitutes over one third of the total ‘new driver’ bill.

Over half (53%) of parents said the cost of car insurance is a major concern with 12% saying that their child has delayed getting a first car specifically because of the cost of insurance. After safety, the cost of car insurance is parents’ biggest concern when their child is learning to drive and 30% said that the cost was far greater than expected.

The survey of 1,000 parents revealed that three out of five (59%) of parents feel that the insurance industry should be doing more to help young drivers and the same number describe young driver insurance premiums as a ‘rip-off’. More than half of parents (51%) also believe that high insurance premiums play a major factor in young people driving without insurance.