One of the biggest expenses as a car owner is not the cost of repairs or maintenance for your car but usually the cost of insuring your car, this is especially so for new drivers. Here at Car Insurance New Drivers we try to help new drivers to get a cheaper policy by informing them of the different things that you can do to reduce the cost of your premiums.
As a new driver you will not have been able to build up any no claims discount. The no claims bonus is a way for rewarding drivers for not making any claims during that year. Usually the insurer will give you up to 5 years no claims, in some cases this will go up to 6,7 or even 8 years. Getting just 1 year of no claims can reduce you car insurance by about a third. This is obviously quite a substantial discount so it is important that you try to build up your no claims discount.
As a new driver you will have no driving history so no discount and no proof to the car insurance company that you are a low risk driver. Car insurers have certain rules that help them decide how high or low to set your quote, the more factors that you can change to your benefit the lower your car insurance quote will be. There are however obviously factors that are beyond your control. New drivers and young drivers, particularly males are classed as a higher risk and so will incur higher premiums. Certain postcodes are attributed as higher crime areas and so attract higher premiums.
The factors that you can change can still make a significant difference to the cost of your insurance. One of the biggest factors is the insurance group of the car you drive, the lower the group the lower the cost of your car insurance policy. Keeping your choice of car in the lower insurance groups, generally 3 or lower will make a significant difference especially for new drivers.
Generally making any modifications to your car will increase the insurance costs, modifications include any non standard modifications such as spoilers, body kits, sports performance improvements, new in car audio system and so on. One modification however will reduce your premiums, this is of course fitting a recognised alarm or immobiliser system.