Rise in insurance premium after passing a test

millie

My son passed his driving test last week. I phoned his insurance company today to ask if he would get a reduction now he has a full licence. I was rather shocked by the answer, apparently he has to pay another £73, it has actually increased the premium. When I questioned this I was told that it was because before he passed, he had to have another driver sitting next to him now he can drive alone he is classed at a higher risk. I can see the point I suppose but I dont know what would have happened if I had not told them, because I only queried it hoping to save him some money, and it cost him more.

saver_sam

He would probably be technically uninsured as the insurance is for a learner driver and not a fully passed one and if he'd had any problems whilst out on his own the insurance co may try not to pay out on the policy.

Astaroth

What would happen would depend on the policy wording on when you must tell them of a material change to details - most insurers want to know when the change occurs but a few only want to be told at renewal.

If you breach the terms of your policy then the minimum you get is no cover for a claim for either your vehicle or a third parties and at most there is criminal charges of driving without insurance and loading to fraud databases which will notify any credit cards/ loans/ mortgages/ bank accounts etc of your fraudulant activity

BenL

I recently had to claim as someone crashed into me, no fault at all of my own.

I needed to send to my insurance company my licence and also licences of my named drivers before the payout would be sent.

Bit strange as I could have just gone through the other company and not had to bother.

I was the one driving and shouldn't really have had to send other drivers licences in but had nothing to hide and wanted the £££.

Ben

Astaroth

Different insurers have different processes of when they check details... a number of them do not perform the checks until claim stage whilst others do it all up front (most common in a mixture of the two)

Whilst you may say it is not your fault at all, after too many years of working in disputed liability and personal injury claims I can assure you that there is no such thing as clear liability until an admission of liability is received from the other insurer (and even then, if it is a large case then it can be retracted at a later date). Hopefully yours is already sorted but even in cases of "he hit me in the rear whilst I was stationary at lights" is too often countered by the other party stating "he rolled back into my car whilst I was stationary at the lights".