Car insurance for daughter

Smarty_pants

My student daughter passed her driving test and is now able to drive the car which she bought over a year ago (registered in my name)! The real dilemma is that as a young person the insurance is coming at over £1,200 (Tesco) £900 with Elephant. These are way more (double the cost of the car) that she or I can afford. So now she is unable to practise her driving due to the high cost of car insurance.

I thought that I could insurance it in my name and put her as the named driver but it now transpires that as she will be the main driver that really doesn't work, and plus I have my own car.

I'm sure there is no solution to my problem but felt I had to come onto the forum in the glimmer that someone will have some words of advice.

A very upset mother

honeypop

Did you check what her insurance costs would be when you gave her this car? Just interested to know if they had gone up a lot since you checked so didn't realise the cost or whether you both just hoped it would be affordable. My younger sister passed her test a while after checking what the cost would be, and the cost had gone up by the time she wanted to insure the car and made it much more than she planned for.

If I listened to my mum properly, this is what they had to do:
The car is in my Mums name and my mum drives her own car also (like your situation) I believe they are both insured on this second car through Direct Line with my mum as the policy holder and sister as named driver (so can build up own no-claims bonus with this particular policy), doesn't really matter who the main driver would be as in theory it could be different month to month, although in this case (and yours) it would be the daughters every time. Although maybe be beneficial on premiums to say you will be?

I am almost sure it is Direct Line that does this. Not sure if this helps you, but just to let you know the situation can be hopefully be sorted out in some way, as I have seen the same thing with my mum and sister.

Astaroth

Many insurers are clamping down on fronted policies (parents insuring a car in their name when it is the child that is the actual main driver) and at worse can result in being loaded to national registeries for fraud, cancellation of insurance and repudiation of any claims.

If the car is only worth £500 ish (from what you are saying) then look at getting third party only insurance - will reduce the quote a fair bit, as a young driver she will probably have an excess of £500 or more anyway so wouldnt get a pay out from an accidental damage claim anyway.

Make sure you have the annual mileage about right otherwise you are paying more than you need to.

Other than that it is simply a case of paying it and being thankful you have a daughter rather than a son so are getting a relative bargain.

Smarty_pants

When we purchased the car, i did not think about checking what the insurance would be, but you live and learn.

As I've found out today when trying to get quotes all the insurance companies are coming back and asking who will be driving the car the majority and have said that my daughter has to have the policy in her name.

On the comment about third party only, I did a quote yesterday with Elephant and TPFT was £989 AND TF was £987 - go figure!

I read another thread about Norwich Union Direct who include when a driver had their provisional licence, which would be 3 years for my daughter. I got a quote for £1,400 (which is comparable to a lot of quotes I have had today for TPFT) for fully comp, they no longer do TPFT, unfortunately!

I'm still searching but it looks like we are going to have to fork out the cash as I do not want to be done for fraud and risk my insurance etc.

maclean2

Hi - as your daughter is a student try Endsleigh who concentrate on students.
Also worth trying ecarinsurance and quinn direct.

Best of luck

huddsta

Sad truth is the first year of her own poicly will be very expencive what ever you do. My first years was £1300 TPFT, now down to around £500 with 1 years NCB.

Lots of people I know (myself included) have at some point been a named driver on a car owned and insurered by a parent. If insurance companies don't ike it then they should look at ways to lower costs for young drivers in the first place.

maclean2

Another possibility is

https://www.youngladydriver.co.uk

They offer a 6 month policy at half the price allowing 30% discount after 6 months if you then take out a 12 month policy with them.This does commit you to renewing with them as other companies do not generally accept transfer of the 30% discount.

Perhaps still worth a look.You can adjust the quote to see what they would want for a 12 month policy by making your daughter 6 months older and showing the NCD as one year.

stacey21_2

The first year is usually the worst and once that is over and done with then it will go down dramatically - my first year was £1200 (with a car worth about 2/3 of that!) and my second year went down to £600, and has fell continuously since then.

Tim_Dodd_2

You mentioned that Elephant is one of your best quotes so far. Diamond (https://www.diamond.co.uk) and Elephant are both brands from the Admiral Group. You may find, however, that Diamond returns a better quote as your daughter matches their primary book of business - female driver.

Along the same lines, https://www.bell.co.uk are good with drivers who have a Zero NCB history. Again, they're part of the Admiral Group so they should be similar to the Elephant quote - possibly better as your daughter also matches their primary book of business - zero no claims.

Research will show which is strongest - female driver saving or zero no claims focussed provider - along with the mix of other variables.

Midmac

The pru are one of the cheapest for younger drivers in my past expereince

dld2s

Has she done her "pass plus course" it helped a little when my daughter first passed her test, only certain companies give a discount with it though