Passing your driving test and arranging your first set of wheels is an exciting time. The freedom of the open road and not having to rely on parents to get around are strong incentives for anyone to get a driving licence.
Unfortunately one teenager has had to put her motoring ambitions on hold after being quoted £33,000 for car insurance.
Kaljeet Bansal was offered the astronomically expensive cover when trying to insure a 0.8-litre Daewoo Matiz worth £400.
Despite using a price comparison website, the cheapest cover she could find came in at just shy of £20,000 for the year.
Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Kaljeet said: “When I saw the numbers come up on my laptop screen I thought it must be a mistake.
“But I’ve tried it four times now and it’s the same every time.
“My friends haven’t started driving lessons yet but I think this will put them off.”
Her brother Pardeep Bansal attempted to speak to the insurance companies on her behalf, but to no avail.
He said: “I thought she must have put the details in wrong, like she’d accidentally put that she’s got a gold-plated Rolls Royce or something.
“But we’ve checked so many times. There is no justification for charging that kind of money.
“The Starship Enterprise would be cheaper to insure.”
While her lack of experience and the rough area that she lives in are likely to be contributory factors in being offered higher premiums, the lack of power and low value of the Daewoo Matiz Kaljeet was trying to insure make the quotes extremely difficult to comprehend.
A spokesman from Adrian Flux, the company that offered the £33,000 quote, said: “As you can see from Kaljeet’s comparison website results, many insurers are declining to provide quotes for some young drivers.
“We try to always provide a quote, which allows us to log the results and refine the final premium when we have more information about the risk. So while it may be unrealistic for the customer to take the policy out online at that price, our underwriters will hopefully be able to provide a cheaper quote when they can assess the risk more accurately over the phone.”
