help with young drivers insurance pleeease

Tahiti

I've just had another thought (and I really don't know how it works), but Norwich Union were advertising pay as you go insurance very recently. Now that has got to be worth a look too. A colleague at work (in her late 30s admittedly) was part of the pilot scheme, and it saved her a fortune as she didn't do many miles.

MarkyMarkD

Tahiti wrote:

If he's going to be driving your car rather than his, take a look at Direct Line. They should insure him as a second driver (assuming he is that), AND sort him out with a year's no claims at the end of it if he's sensible. Either that or go to a sit down broker and get some face to face advice - you MIGHT be surprised by what they can do.

In my experience, insurance isn't a lot cheaper at age 18 than at 17, even with the years extra experience. With a years NCB though, it can make a difference.

Hope that helps.

But other posters have suggested that the NCB will not be transferrable to other insurers, so he would only be able to get cheaper insurance from Direct Line after one year - and that wouldn't necessarily be cheaper.

Pantera_Fan

kate1956 wrote:

I've looked on the forum but can't find the answer to this so hope people can help. My 17year old son is about to take his test and it's become clear that there's no way we can afford to insure a car for him especially since he wouldn't be driving very often.
One way round this I thought might be to buy a small old car that I drove so insured in my name and then insure him as a Temporary Additional Driver for when he wants to drive in the holidays - so therefore only insuring him for certain dates. Does anyone know if this is possible?
I understand about 'fronting' being illegal but this doesn't seem to be the same.
Question is though - is it possible, how much per day and which insurance companies would do this? Any help would be much appreciated - oh yes and we understand that this wouldn't give him any no claims bonus but we don't have a problem with that.

When I passed my driving test I got a magazine with my pass certificate (called drive on I think) which had adverts for loads of insurers who specialise in young/inexperienced drivers.

After doing my pass plus and calling a few of the companies in the magazine I managed to reduce my insurance quotes by over £500 then by using the main companies/search engines so it may still be affordable to get your son his own car.

iglimpse

Please be careful, insurance companies can void any insurance and you need to tell them everything - even if they don't ask!

Many insurance companies now ask how many cars in the family. They are aware that fronting is going on and many companies will not accept that if there is more than one car in the family that the teenager is not the main driver of the second or third car. They will assume the teenager is going to be the main driver and quote accordingly. Seems very unfair.

Insurance companies should be doing more to encourage young people to get insurance and not go down the illegal route. I know insurance companies are not interested in teenagers - too high risk. But somebody needs to sort this complicated mess out - Dept of Trade??

hamish222

My nephew who is 17 has just got insurance and cheapest was Direct Line. Still really expensive at 2000 quid but a lot less than others were quoting at 4000 grand and even more.

MarkyMarkD

iglimpse wrote:

Please be careful, insurance companies can void any insurance and you need to tell them everything - even if they don't ask!

Many insurance companies now ask how many cars in the family. They are aware that fronting is going on and many companies will not accept that if there is more than one car in the family that the teenager is not the main driver of the second or third car. They will assume the teenager is going to be the main driver and quote accordingly. Seems very unfair.

Insurance companies should be doing more to encourage young people to get insurance and not go down the illegal route. I know insurance companies are not interested in teenagers - too high risk. But somebody needs to sort this complicated mess out - Dept of Trade??

I'm not sure I understand your point.

If a family has 3 drivers, and 3 cars, there are very few circumstances in which one driver isn't the main driver of one car each.

Insurance companies aren't encouraging, or causing, anyone to go down the "illegal" route. That's the choice of those who lie to their insurers.

The reason insurance is expensive for young people is because they are high risk. End of story. Any insurer who doesn't charge young people higher premiums is cross-subsidising from their older customers, and will eventually be driven out of business as their older customers all obtain cheaper insurance elsewhere.

And it's far better for insurers to challenge customers over fronting at the underwriting stage than to accept the policy on risk and then refuse to pay up when it becomes obvious that the young person was the main (or sole) driver of the vehicle involved.

Ian85

Slightly off topic here, but how do insurance companies classify 'main driver'? Is it the person who does the most miles, person who drives the most hours, person who has the car for longest.

For example, if there are 2 people using a car - the main driver uses it to drive to work (about 3 miles away) but parks the car in the work car park and has the car from say 8am - 6pm. The second driver uses the car when the main driver gets back home (say from 8pm - 11pm) but may clock up more miles than the main driver. The main driver would have had the car for a longer period of time, but the second driver has driven more miles.

It just seems a bit vague to me how main driver is defined.

chriswuk_2

Miles I think.

They think that the more a certain person is driving the car, then the more likely they are to have an accident.

MarkyMarkD

It doesn't matter how things are defined with insurance. What matters is that you are completely honest with the insurer.

If someone uses the car for 90% of the time, but 15% of the miles, than you need to tell the insurer that, not just say that they are not the main driver because they only drive one mile each way, every day.

It isn't necessary mileage that's risky anyway - motorways are tens of times safer than local roads.

The insurers need full disclosure in order to fairly assess the risk and then there's no risk of comeback in the event of a claim.

Tahiti

MarkyMarkD wrote:

But other posters have suggested that the NCB will not be transferrable to other insurers, so he would only be able to get cheaper insurance from Direct Line after one year - and that wouldn't necessarily be cheaper.

I agree with what you're saying (hadn't noticed that :rolleyes:). In my experience though, Direct Line proves to be pretty competitive for young drivers on sensible cars. They sorted me out in my first year of driving.

My recommendation would be for the lad to build up some NCB on his own car in his own right whatever the situation may be. It just delays the inevitable kick in the (you choose the body part) when he comes to buy insurance in his own right without any NCD.