A disgruntled motorist has been ridiculed online after complaining about a high insurance quote – seemingly oblivious to the way premiums are calculated.
User ‘disciminatedat17’ vented their anger via the Reddit social discussion website r/LegalAdviceUK, having searched for insurance on their new car, and suggested that the quote of £8,438 was ‘discrimination’ based on their age.
While commenters seemed initially sympathetic, the case soon unravelled when it was revealed that the teenager was a student searching for a quote on a new BMW X5 Sport – a large SUV with an asking price of nearly £60,000.
Users tried to help by rounding up the reasons for the motorist’s enormous premium. Not only were they attempting to insure a very large, powerful and expensive car, but being a full-time student they were also likely to be driving and parking it around statistically poor drivers.
That’s before getting to the driver’s age – at 17, they’re in a very high-risk group of drivers. In fact, more than a quarter of new drivers admit to having an accident in their first year of motoring, leading insurers to raise premiums accordingly.
This didn’t go down well with the user, though. Citing their father’s much lower insurance quote, they said: “If I want cheaper insurance I have to be 30 years older – that’s the only way – which is discrimination.”
The user became increasingly agitated, suggesting that raising premiums for younger drivers was equivalent to discriminating on the grounds of ethnicity.
Eventually, they proved so argumentative that the moderators locked the thread – accusing them of “throwing their toys out of their brand new BMW X5 Sport” and urging them to reflect on what had been said and “learn and mature”.
Young drivers’ insurance premiums are notoriously high across the UK. Newly qualified motorists are advised to choose a car in a low insurance group and invest in added driver training, such as Pass Plus, to have the best chance of reducing their premiums.
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