Two seperate policies on one car whilst learning?

MarkAtkins67

Does anyone know if you can have more than one policy on a car whilst the other person is learning? I know you can't have two policies when both drivers have full licenses, but I can't seem to find anything for if I want to be in my car with my partner whilst she's having lessons as well. Obviously I don't want to put my NCB at risk.

jessmist

Hi,
When my eldest son was learning i used http://www.wearemarmalade.co.uk/learner-driver-insurance
It was ideal for me as my insurance company wouldn't except anyone under the age of 25.

Aretnap

MarkAtkins67 wrote: »

I know you can't have two policies when both drivers have full licenses...

Actually you can - it's just that usually there's no reason why you'd want two policies as you could nearly always get the same cover more cheaply by having both drivers named on the same policy. However if you need to drive someone else's car and don't want to be named on his policy for whatever reason (perhaps he doesn't trust you with his NCD) there are short term policies for precisely that purpose (example).

A quick Google shows that there are a lot of companies which will give you an additional policy to cover a learner driver. Not a recommendation for any particular company but here are a few examples

http://www.theaa.com/insurance/learner-drivers-car-insurance.html
http://www.aviva.co.uk/learner/
http://www.coveredlearnerdriver.com/
http://www.collingwoodlearners.co.uk/LearnerDrivers/

oscarward

Hi

yes you can, we did this whilst our son was learning to drive when at school.

The advantage was it could be done for a week or a month at a time so we only took insurance for the holiday periods so didn't need to pay out for a full year.

The disadvantage was he didn't earn any NCB which he may have if he was a named driver. Also the cover stopped as soon as he passed his test. We had to bite the bullet and buy a new policy for him in his own name, Ouch!

thenudeone

MarkAtkins67 wrote: »

Does anyone know if you can have more than one policy on a car whilst the other person is learning? I know you can't have two policies when both drivers have full licenses,

Yes you can to both questions. it's an urban myth that you can't have two policies on one car.

oldtoolie

Yes, I used Marmalade with my car for my son while he was learning.

Joe_Horner

One thing to watch out for with learner policies is what happens when she passes her test. We had this with our daughter and it was quite a fight to make them back down:

As soon as she passes her test, the learner policy won't cover her. The insurer will try to treat this as a mid-term cancellation and "convert" the time she's been on cover to short-term rates unless she takes out a policy with them for her first year. Their rates for that will probably be FAR higher than she can get elsewhere.

In our daughter's case the figures were something like this:

Cost of annual learner policy £350 paid by installments
Quote when she passed £1400
Best quote elsewhere when she passed £450
Amount "due" on the old policy if she cancelled (after conversion, including £70 cancellation fee) £650

In the end they settled for the cancellation fee only but it took a fight and a few threats to persuade them.

You can get round this by using one of the short-term renewable learner policies that have started to appear, but they're more expensive in the first place and learning can be an open-ended affair.