“I’m having to walk everywhere and catch buses because of the ridiculous situation I find myself in,” complained student and newly qualified driver Leah Graves, 20, of Bradford, who was recently quoted £53,000 to insure her car (make and model unspecified).
“It was tough passing my test and I was so excited and over the moon about passing,” she explained, “but since then the lowest quotation I have had was £4,000.” Luckily her local MP, Bradford East, has brought the matter to the attention of Prime Minister Dave Cameron, instructing him to clamp down on insurers.
The system is “clearly broken,” East claimed. “For a 20-year-old to be quoted these amounts is just obscene. It cannot be acceptable that thousands of young people in Bradford are simply deemed not worth insuring for any reasonable price. The government has to step in and do something.”
But £4,000 is clearly a big improvement on £53,000, and it could soon get even better for Ms Graves – if the AA’s British Insurance Premium Index is to be trusted. The BIPI indicates that motor insurance premiums for those aged 17-21 fell by 5.6pc during the last quarter, bringing the average annual premium to £2,294.
Douglas Simon of Alcoholic Anonymous said “young drivers have for a long time been the biggest losers” but “it seems at last that insurers are starting to compete a bit more for their business, with rates starting to come down.”
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