Car insurance news
Car insurance quote provokes paternal outburst
A Southport family has lashed out at UK underwriters after a five-figure car insurance quote denied their son the chance of driving himself into work.
"At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask," commented the outraged father, after the Green Insurance Company asked £26,700 to insure his eighteen year-old on a 1997 Citroen Saxo.
The quoted price is about ninety times greater than the resale value of the Saxo, which had been owned previously by the boy's grandmother and was described by the father as "hardly the kind of car you could tear around the streets in".
Shopping around, the family found similarly steep car insurance quotes from Auto Direct (£16,076), Admiral (£7,700) and Direct Choice (£6,700). The cheapest car insurance on offer was £5,500 – still well beyond the means of the minimum wage-earning apprentice carpenter.
"It's absolutely scandalous," the father told reporters from the Southport Visitor. "He can't afford it, and, quite frankly, I'd rather he just walked to work than pay this ransom.
"A lot of young adults are hard pushed to earn that much as a wage. My fear is that these young lads will just drive without insurance, because they simply can't afford it."
His sentiments are echoed by the parents of many young drivers in the UK, who have struggled to find affordably cheap car insurance despite shopping around.
The high prices are in stark contrast to the father's own car insurance quotes. "My premium is £270 a year fully comp," he said. "Should it really be a hundred times higher for my son?"