New Driver Insurance

I'll be soon taking my driving test and looking to buy my first car, which I really want to be a Jimny. 

I've seen a couple of nice low mileage 2006 cars for sale that I can afford but I need to make sure I can afford them insurance first. 
Has anyone here been a new driver and bought a Jimny and if so which insurance company did you go with?

I've had a quote from Stirling and it was in excess of £4000 for the year. 

Many thanks
​​​​​​L

Whilst I'm a fan of the Jimny and had one as my first car they are not the best first car to have insurance wise & if you aren't familiar with a Jimny you may want to have a go in one first to see if you get along with it as they aren't everybody's cup of tea. Lots of things affect insurance quotes postcode, where the car is kept overnight, no claims bonus etc so asking where everybody goes with won't really help as it's different for everyone. Best to phone around using some auto trader cars as examples.

It's probably worth getting a quote on something of a similar value or age, but more mainstream, a Fiesta, Polo, Fiat etc to see if it's the vehicle or your age, where you live etc, which is pushing up the premium so much.

Insurance costs for low[ish] value cars tend to seem expensive, but it's not so much the cost of repairing/replacing your car that pushes the premium up, it's the cost of repairing damage to 3rd parties and all of the 'add on' costs these days.

Insurance companies usually work on the basis that you will have a claim within the first 12 months of passing your test, we all know it's not fair, but that's the view they take.

You should shop around, try Compare the Market, etc and play around with the excess, annual mileage and check to see if having a 'black box' fitted can help.

Otherwise, you might have to consider something cheaper to insure until you have built up a no claims bonus, then swap to a Jimny.

Robin

My partner did this after passing her test (actually taken in the Jimny - the examiner seemed unfazed), and it was about £700/year with Admiral.

However, she was 48 at the time and we don't know how old you are.



 

A Gen 3 Jimny is a Group 14 or 15 (out of 50) - so it's a low group for most drivers, but not great for a young/newly qualified driver. Something like a 1.0 Polo is a Group 1. This is worth a look:
www.carwow.co.uk/best/cheapest-cars-to-insure-0115#gref

Good luck!

You can buy some jeep/4x4/offroad magazines and call the insurance brokers that advertise in them. They might even pricematch each other.

Just read an article on the BBC about young drivers and they presented this graph of average insurance premiums for young drivers.  

 

Interesting how the average premiums jumped in 2023 and I am sure there was a similar jump for everyone else.  It’s not great for the motorist and expect a hike in fuel duty next week.

Robin

I was playing round with quotes last night for a 2016 Gen 3 Jimny (sadly sold before I could even view it today) anyway I'm nearly 29 with no claims over 11 years, clean license etc and it was looking like £350-450 depending on who you went with. That was with a bog standard car and I did raise the excess as that does bring the price down. I then tried slapping on a suspension change as I would have lifted the car so this went up to over £800!!!! My Gen 4 lcv is just under £800 and my 2019 SZ5 is under £500 both have limited miles and one is garaged all the time although both do have mods. Insurance is definatly one of the biggest scams in history.

I renewed my SZ5 earlier this month with 8,000 miles per year for £275 fully comp, inc breakdown and legal protection, 5 years no claims on this vehicle, makes it look quite a good price.

Robin

It the recent change in the legislation that by unintended consequences has caused this. The idea was to legislate away the new policy discounting that was so prevalent in the past and so bring premiums down across the board. Instead because of the greed of the companies everything went up. It's hardly surprising that uninsured is on the rise.

You know you start from zero NCD with an additional car?

Lambert wrote:

It the recent change in the legislation that by unintended consequences has caused this. The idea was to legislate away the new policy discounting that was so prevalent in the past and so bring premiums down across the board. Instead because of the greed of the companies everything went up. It's hardly surprising that uninsured is on the rise.

Too true, except it didn’t work for me.  My insurance company sent me a renewal for £325, I was all set to accept the renewal and thought I would go on Compare the Meerkat and the same policy from the very same company was £275.  I had to have two 1 hour phone calls to them, they eventually matched my renewal to the new policy price.

Except when I went to renew it said £275, but they were going to take £325 from my bank account.  I couldn’t face another hour on the phone so took out the new policy and let the old one lapse.

Roger is correct, you can only use a no claims bonus on one car, but have a claim and you loose both, or all if you have more than one policy.  I have had two cars for over 20 years and until 2019 one of them was a company vehicle, but in my name.  When my company car went back and I bought a Jimny in 2019, I tried to use my company insurance, but very few companies will carry a company car insurance NCD to a personal policy, so I started on no NCD on my Jimny, despite not having a claim since the mid nineties.

Robin