Young driver insurance

How do I compare young drivers car insurance quotes?

Car insurance can seem confusing, especially when you’re buying it for the first time. However, it doesn’t have to be and with our help you can get a quote in as little as five minutes.

• Fill out our quote form. We’ll ask you a few questions about you, your car and your driving history
• We’ll compare up to 140 car insurance companies to help find the right policy at the right price
• We’ll show you a list of quotes to choose from. Here you can view prices monthly or annually and add features such as breakdown or windscreen cover
• Once you’ve bought car insurance don’t forget to come back and choose a freebie with Confused.com Rewards.

What level of cover should I choose as a young driver?

With standard 12-month policies you can choose from three levels of cover. However, with some learner driver or black box policies you may not get the choice.

The cover options are:

• Fully comprehensive which offers the highest level of protection. It covers you and other drivers from damage caused by you. It often works out to be the cheapest option too.
• Third-party, fire and theft (TPFT) protects you against damage caused to someone else’s property, but also includes cover for your car against fire or theft.
• Third-party is the minimum amount of cover you legally need to drive. It covers damage caused to someone else’s property, but doesn't cover repairs, theft or fire damage to your own car.

Why is young driver insurance so expensive?

Young drivers are generally less experienced behind the wheel than older drivers. Unfortunately, this means they’re also more likely to have an accident or need to make an insurance claim. Insurers use their own claims data to back this up and cover the extra risk involved in insuring young drivers by charging higher insurance prices.

A mix of things, including the car you drive and your driving history, go into working out how much car insurance costs. Understanding some of them could help you get cheaper quotes:

• The car you’re driving with its age, engine size, value and average repair cost help decide a car's insurance group. There are 50 groups from 1 to 50 and generally the lower the group the cheaper your quotes will be.
• Your details like your age, where you live, and your job are just some of the things insurers look at.
• The level of cover you’re looking for because whether it’s comprehensive, third-party, or third-party fire and theft, the level of cover you choose will influence your price. Even though it offers the most protection for you and your car, comprehensive cover isn't always the most expensive, so double check all the options before you buy.
• Voluntary excess is the amount you personally agree to pay towards an insurance claim on top of the standard or compulsory excess. Generally, the more you’re willing to pay, the lower your car insurance price. But you should only agree on an excess you can afford to pay after an accident.
• Your driving history is a major factor and the lack of experience for a young driver does count against you. How long you’ve been driving for, how many years no-claims bonus (NCB) you’ve got and any points on your licence will all affect your car insurance prices.

These factors apply to drivers of all ages. But this information alone isn’t enough to base a quote on, so insurers also use statistical data from all of their customers to work out the level of risk. Higher risk equals higher prices.

What are the cheapest cars to insure as a young driver?

Getting yourself a car that is cheap to insure will help bring down the cost of young driver insurance.

According to our data, some of the cheapest cars for 17-year olds to insure² include:

• Toyota Aygo x-trend TSS VVT-i
• Skoda Citigo Colour Edition MPI 60
• Volkswagen up! High up! 75
• Hyundai I10 STYLE (78)
• Fiat 500s

Cars in higher insurance groups tend to be more expensive to repair or replace.

The insurance group a car is in can be affected by:

• Performance such as the acceleration and top speed
• New car price with the more expensive a new car is, the more it costs to replace
• The cost of replacing car parts if it’s involved in an accident. This is worked out using a standard list of 23 parts that are the most commonly damaged.
• Security and how secure the car is against theft. The better the manufacturer-fitted security, the higher the chance of the car being placed into a lower insurance group.

If you haven’t already bought your car, take a look at our list of the top 10 cheapest cars to insure in 2021.

²Based on Confused.com data September 2021 - March 2022