Its just the first year that they hit you for and its always around the 3K mark
Best advice i can give you is pay monthly. It costs more but if they have an accident they can just transfere it to another car. If you pay it all in one go and have an accident they may want a lot more money to transfere to another car where as they know they cant cancel a policy on the monthly because you will just stop paying it.
This will be an extra £500 or so but at least you know you will get the full year for it.
My eldest had a punto at £2800, it got written off, they found him to blame and he just transfered to another punto and carried on with the monthly payment.
The following year even after the write off it went down to £1300.
Basically dont get a car unless your working and can pay for it.
Both my boys had to pay about the same.
The reason i think you see so many youngsters in nice cars is because if your paying 3k for a punto you might as well pay 4k for something sexy...if you get my drift.
They just have to budget about £60 a week which is the same as smoking 20 fags a day so its not as expensive as you think really
The reason it goes up when they pass their test is because they are now out on their own.