Alexa
It’s almost certainly worth asking for quotes whilst adding one or both of your parents on to your MX5 insurance (provided they have a good insurance/driving record). That will, bizarrely, almost certainly reduce the quotes, even though you are the main driver and they rarely drive it.
JS
Yeah thanks for the tip. I thought they would so I always add them anyways as they are both over 50 and have clean driving licence and insurance record.
My guess as to why 1 year makes such a difference is that some clever person decided to have a 30 year cut off period.
Wouldn’t be surprised if you did the same test in a year and found 1991 price had gone up as it passed 30 years old!
Have you tried other cars of similar ages (just out of curiosity)?
Cut-off period sounds right.
My old Vextra was usually about 180 per annum, year after year, but when it passed 15 years old it jumped to just under 600. Obviously they did not want to insure it.
I left Admiral and asked Direct Line, back to 180-ish.
But renewals started creeping up to being silly again, and I was haggling insurers each year because of silly quotes.
It died at 20.
The new Mazda3 I replaced it with is about 220-ish each first year, but again having to haggle and think about changing insurers each time with renewals at 250-270.
I haven’t tried other cars to be honest . I wondered if it might be to do with it being 30 years old.
Lots of advice on Martins Money Tips
Yes, do add your parents and your job title can make a big difference.
Have you looked at classic insurance with limited mileage??
I have looked. Nowhere will quote me online and I couldn’t get through to Footman James yesterday so will be trying again for them and some other classic insurers on Monday. Just going to work my way through some classic insurers as long as I qualify. I’ll only need 3-4k miles for next couple of years but then it’ll be my daily and I know a lot of classic insurers won’t allow you to have it as a first car.
Aviva should be sending me cheques by now… I just ran through the process on their website for a stock standard Eunos changing only the year from 1990 to 1991 and it made no difference to the price. Mine is 1990 and nothing happened over the last two years.
They’re partnered with Hagerty’s for older vehicle who only allow cars built before 1990, so that may be a reason there’s no effect, which will maybe different next year, but the relationship doesn’t look much deeper than a referral link on their page so I doubt it.
Eunos is a grey import and many insurers don’t quote for grey imports as there are subtle differences in parts which could result in longer repair times = longer car hire.
Also stuff like coilovers will scare a lot of insurers at your age. They just see boy racer.
If you stick to an unmodified official UK MX5 it should be better but that the end of the day it’s still a sports car with a young driver and never going to be cheap sadly.
Most of the mainstream companies won’t want a car that old, as if it’s in a claim, it’s hard to find parts for and probably going to be a right off.
Have you looked at NB and NC models, they will be cheaper to insure.
Also details like lower mileage, parked off road or garaged helps.
I have my old 1987 Fiat X1/9 insured with these folks on a classic policy, 3000 miles pa, for £175, but I am 48!
It would be low milage but unfortunately no space to keep off road. I also really want 115bhp NA. Might just have to hold of for a couple of years.
Unfortunately looks like I’ll have to wait till I’m 25 to be insured by your insurers
If I could find a stock version of what I wanted, that would be great but just haven’t found one.