So here you are, a young driver looking forward to buying your first car after having passed your driving test at the very first try! You count up your money and decide that you can afford a pretty decent machine, you shop around to see how much (or hopefully, how little) insurance will cost and your dreams suddenly dissolve. The quotes you get are way beyond even the cost of the car itself!

The problem is that insurance companies do not like taking on young drivers, and in most cases they have good reason to do so because it is a statistical fact that one in five new drivers will be involved in a serious accident within a year of starting to drive. Some of this can of course be put down to lack of experience, which is bad enough in itself, but a lot of it is caused by what is diplomatically called 'over exuberance'; in other words drivers between 17 and 24 break more speed limits than all other age ranges put together. The insurer companies have looked at the risk of insuring you, worked out what they think is a reasonable premium bearing in mind the amount of money which the average person of your age and driving experience is likely to cost them.

Okay, that's the problem, so what do you do about it? If you are going to get lower quotations you are going to have to show the insurance company that you are not such a bad risk after all. You will do this very well if you follow the advice below!

First of all, look very carefully at the insurance group that your proposed first car falls into. The lower the group, the less it will cost you; but the reason why a car is in a low group is because it is statistically a safe car, and this usually means that it has less power and can therefore do less damage! Swallow your pride for a while, it could be well worth your while. Secondly, forget about buying an expensive one, get the cheapest one you can get hold of (provided of course that it is completely roadworthy) and insure it for third party only. If it gets a bump consider paying for the damage out of your own pocket or even scrapping the car and buying another one if it was cheap enough; it is imperative that you build up a no claims discount! Thirdly, name a more experienced, older driver as a second driver on the policy; this often brings the quotations are down substantially. Consider paying a larger excess on the policy; this is the sum of money which you will be expected to contribute towards the costs if you are involved in a claim. Provided that you are confident that you could afford to pay this sum out, offering to pay a large excess could reduce quotations considerably. It goes without saying of course that you must drive carefully, safely and without even thinking about driving with a drink or two under your belt; a conviction at this stage of your driving career could make it impossible, or at best wildly expensive to get cover in future. Finally, use a good price comparison website to get your quotations; this is a much more efficient way than phoning around dozens of insurance companies, many of which would not want to insure you at any price anyhow! Good luck.