This is a long thread! Warning you now!

This sort of stemmed from a debate I had with a friend over the Pay As You Drive Insurance scheme, which has the restriction for young drivers not to drive between 11pm & 6am, or you’ll be punished financially.
It’s a known fact that younger driver’s are statistically more likely to have an accident and make a claim, especially at night. Now I started to think, what percentage of these were younger drivers uninsured? Let’s not forget, an accident with an uninsured party still means the innocent person will have to claim through their insurance, thus pushing claims up.

The stats the insurance companies tend to draw the attention away from, is the amount of young driver's driving around without insurance because they can't afford the premium, even for the basic Third Party (which I think has almost been scrapped). Why do you think there are so many modified cars around at night? I'd bet a big percentage of them either do not have all/any mods declared and I would put my neck on the line and say that a healthy percentage of the cars are most probably uninsured. They have an accident, as they’re young, the rest of England’s young driver’s are affected.

I was reading a thread a while ago and someone mentioned about a flat rate fee to be paid for first time drivers, instead of the PAYD scheme. I’ve argued this also and in theory, it could work with the following restrictions (all info is not in anyway been thought through, but to be used as a guideline):

Young People Policy insurance is £1000 to start with.
1. If you do Pass Plus and/or any other Post Driving Test Scheme, your premium falls by £150 per scheme (or maybe 1/8th per scheme?). Incentive for people to do further driving courses either way
2. No car over insurance group 4-5 can be insured on the 'Young Driver Policy' (Group 5 cover's 1.9 turbo diesels, so may be an idea to cap it at Group 4!)
3. If you are found at fault for an accident, your insurance is terminated with immediate effect.
4. If you receive any points on your licence, the same applies as point two.
5. You do not modify the vehicle in any shape or form.
6. The contract is for 6 months, and if you stick to the above, you'll pay a further £X (say, 1/5th of original premium) amount for another 6 months.
7. Stick to these guidelines for 12 months, you will qualify for insurance for normal people!

I'd leave age of the car as one for you guys to consider, an older car may be cheaper to repair but also may be easier to steal...

There was more to the list but I can't think of it right now! But the basis is, we'll give you cheap (er) insurance, under the strictest terms & conditions, breaking these means you agree to terminate the contract of insurance.

I personally think PAYD works well in theory, but it'll never work on a big scale as for most people, it's too precise. Give us kids one chance to prove our worth, under the insurance company special rules for a cheaper quote. If it works, the company has a repeat customer, making their whole point in being a business worthwhile. The young driver market can be a gold mine, just don’t restrict when they drive, just what they can drive!

Equation from above: £1000 - £125 (1/8th) = £875
After 6 months: £875 + £175 (1/5th of £875) = 1,050

So after 18 months of driving, you'd have spent £1,050, and gained yourself a years no claims. The company could go further and offer a top up insurance for another 6 months at a certain amount (say £400) which will leave you having paid under £1500 and earning 2 years NCD.

Would that not encourage you to be a safe new driver? Does a contract like this not give young driver's incentive to not only insure their car, but to drive sensibly?

somthing like this is already in the pipe lines where as you will be charged for the mile like road toll's this may seem like a good deal for somone who drives like once a week but for somone like me who drive's 1000miles+ a week it would criple me. i currently have a Punto 60s 1.2spi and i pay £350/£35.00 a year/month fully comp and i only passed my test 8 August 2006 insurance priceing is mainly on the car and some on the person the only way we will get cheaper car insurance is to be the best driver we can. on the other hand for as long as there are stupid little ****s that think they are world class rally drivers when in reality they are world class ****s car insurance will stay the same.

fact is insurance companies are not into high risks.they want the lowest risks possible and offset the high risks with a high premium.
somethnig like your proposal would really have ot be govenrment run/funded/supported methinks

Insurance companies are here to make money. Thats all they care about.

It should be compulsory for people who have just passed their test to do Pass Plus or similar and they should display P Plates until they have done it. This should stop all the showing off as everyone will be able to see they have just passed.
I think it is a little unfair to keep putting crippling insurance on younger drivers. Things are hard enough as it is. How on earth are youngsters ever going to get on in life. Sometimes you need a car to get to a job which in turn will pay a half decent salary and provide experience to eventually move up the ladder to getting their own home etc. The more house prices and car insurance go up the more we are heading for a generation living at home and depending on their parents for everything.
Having insurance terminated afrer an accident or points is a tiny bit harsh. That would be expecting people to be perfect and when we first pass we are all learning. I got points in my first year. The police are getting veeeewy sneaky about how they catch you. And I had minor minor accidents when I first passed too. Just minor stuff like bumper scuffs. Terminating my insurance would have crippled me as I wouldn't of been able to get to work.

I do agree that it may stop these little modded ******s from writing off my car. And I do agree with the insurance group capping. Great idea. My car was just written off by a 17 yr old lad in a whacking great Astra Saloon on his Grandads insurance. His parents virtually begged me to find out how much repairs would be and they would pay rather than put it through the insurance. I hope his Grndads no claims was protected.... If that had been in place he would of been driving a mini metro that would never have got the momentum up to do what he did to poor Vera.

What I'm trying to say in my long winded way is that more financial pressure is not the answer. Education on better driving skills is.

what happens if you have a accident tho

say a small tap or something, according to your critiea the insurance is now finished

what do the people do after that? go to some company thats just gonna rape them silly because they are new to driving and unexperienced and had an accident (and thats what it is, and accident, not something the person did on purpous and should be punished for!!)

also, its very easy to get points on your licence

heck, you can get 3 for missing a stop sign, which can be easily done if your brand new to driving

whoops, you got points you have to go to the insurance broker for naughty people and pay silly amounts!

if youve only just started driving you have a limit of 6 points anyway, that should be enough!

Pass plus isn't all that anyway, the only thing it would have taught me is driving on the motorway, i drove in every condition except snow when I was learning, and the motorway's just a big dual carriageway . What's really needed is more subsidised vehicle control courses on skidpan's, that way you can deal with your car properly when it all goes wrong.

I did a tour of Northern Britain in the first week of passing my test! Up and down the M1, across the M62, loved every second of it. Motorways are easy compared to some towns.

I've driven powerful, high group cars from when I passed my test. Tipo 1.9TD is a group 12! Doesn't mean I was any more dangerous. Maybe instead of a skills test, they should introduce an attitude test? Anyone who answers Nova or Corsa to the question 'What car would you most like after passing this test?' should be instantly banned for the next 5 years.

Anyway, I really like the idea of a flat rate insurance for new drivers - regardless of sex, age, or geographical location. It wouldn't help me much anymore but that doesn't mean its not worth getting. I was young once, I paid silly insurance, I know its not fair.

A lot of modified cars owned by young people are driven around at night simply because at night the owners feel like going on a cruise or have night time "business" to take car of, owners may even have night shifts so that tehy can afford the up keep of their vehicle along with education costs and maybe even living costs if they live away from home.

I have not done research into high risk young drivers but what I can say is no amount of reseach into this area will be accurate unless all aspects of a RTC involving a young driver were monitored right before the events of an accident.

Where a single young person rolls their car into a field or wraps it round a tree the cost of recovery should bare with them. It should not raise their insurance or anyone elses if they do not make a claim.

Where a single young person has a collision with another vehilce there is no way to prove who was in the wrong unless an honest third party is present and makes a statement of events.

Often when a young person hits an older driver, the older driver has faced these situations before and knows exactly what to say the the third party so that they may be convinced it was their fault or scared of consequences of something that has been taken out of proportion.

An older driver will also no what to do in a situation like this where as a new driver will not so regardless of fault, the person with more experience is more likely to make a valid claim against the other party and of course this will reflect badly on the other party who in this scenario will also be the young "inexperienced" driver.

For fair play reasons all drivers should have equal insurance until an accident takes place and even then should a similar case happen like the one above, then the young driver is still likely to come off worse but at least they would have been allowed to drive a few months with a "reasonable" insurance premium.

In some areas of London it doesn't matter what size engine vehicle you drive you will still pay high insurance because of the postcode.

Think one thing to bare in mind with this thread is it just a few ideas that are here to be added to/modified. Never know, could come up with a pretty decent idea!

With regards to Fidgit's & Serin's comments, yeah just noticed about the that does sound a bit harsh! Maybe have a cap on how much the insurance company pay out (on top of your excess) before making your policy void? Or maybe not voiding it straight away but meaning you wont qualify to re-new your policy at a 'young driver' rate; you'd just have to get a normal policy. Think of this policy as someone who makes a claim without protected NCB.

Yeah Pass Plus is a bit of waste of money, saved me absolutely nothing on my premium from day one. A skidplan is a good idea, or how about a simulation of driving in increasingly bad conditions? eg. being able to control a car in a strong cross wind? What to do and how to control a car if a tyre blows at 70? Simulation of possible events would be SO much better.

I ALSO agree that the bigger the engine doesnt always mean the faster the driver. Having a cap on either engine size or insurance group (maybe vary for Diesel's?) would make the inexperienced to think manouvers ahead first before rushing into it because their car is fast enough. The options I'm suggesting are in light of current 'statistics'. so in the eyes of insurance, smaller engines means less young people speeding, which means less accidents caused by young people!...apparently anyway

Trancendental, I know exactly what you mean because I got stung big time due to a lack of experience, but not going to go into that as it's long. Anyway, I'm 19, passed my test in December 04, had 2 claims by May. One was a theft which resulted into a write off. I had to go on my dad's insurance on a 1.2 Bravo for a year just to get my premium back down to when I was 17 and driving a Sei! As it was back to normal, I decided to buy a Stilo

I just think there is something that can be done about first time driver's premiums as it's a joke. Look at high street banks, apparently they're irresponsible lenders and now because of a public uproar, they're having to write off huge sums of cash and stop charging people for not paying their accounts...enough voices do make a difference!