Insuring a friend on own car and making yourself a named driver.

tompease95

Moving to North London and shocked at insurance prices - I will be taking my car but will use it very rarely, so my idea was to share the car with a friend (making them a named driver) and share cost of the insurance. 
The friend in question has a much larger no claims discount, would it be legal to have them as the main policy-holder and just put myself on as a named driver, to save money on the premium?

frederick1950

Only if he IS the main driver and does the most miles.

davidmcn

And (I would guess) the insurers would expect it to be normally parked at the main driver's house.

chrisw

Yes it's fine. The policy holder doesn't HAVE to be the registered keeper, or the main driver or keep it at their address.

However, you MUST make sure that all those details are correctly declared.

The only downside is that you won't be building up your own no claim discount and you would lose any youve already built up after 2 years. You could alternate being the policy holder each year to keep each discount alive but you would obviously pay more on your turn for a couple of years.

Grumpy_chap

Don't forget that if you crash, it will affect your friend's NCB

TSx

Also, you say sharing the car so it's probably not an issue but they won't be able to use the NCB on any other policy, so if they have their own car with insurance already they won't be able to use any NCB on a new policy unless they cancel.

Sandtree

In theory there is nothing wrong with doing anything that you are suggesting as long as everything is declared properly and the NCD is only used on a single policy. The reality however may be more difficult than the theory because its not the norm and most mass market insurers systems have been streamlined to the extent that they cannot deal with something outside of the norm.  

Your friend when buying the insurance would need to correctly declare he isn't the owner/keeper of the vehicle , where the vehicle is kept (and "on the drive" means his drive not yours), who is the main driver etc. This will mean some insurers won't quote and as a consequence may be more expensive than insuring it in your name will less NCD.

[Deleted User]

tompease95 said:

Moving to North London and shocked at insurance prices - I will be taking my car but will use it very rarely, so my idea was to share the car with a friend (making them a named driver) and share cost of the insurance. 
The friend in question has a much larger no claims discount, would it be legal to have them as the main policy-holder and just put myself on as a named driver, to save money on the premium?

Will your friend actually be the main driver. For example will your friend be:

• The person who regularly uses a car to drive to or from work / place of education  
• The person who uses the car for the highest percentage of the time
• The person who uses the car on a daily basis  

Otherwise what you're suggesting is called "fronting" and is illegal.
  

chrisw

Lover_of_Lycra said:

tompease95 said:

Moving to North London and shocked at insurance prices - I will be taking my car but will use it very rarely, so my idea was to share the car with a friend (making them a named driver) and share cost of the insurance. 
The friend in question has a much larger no claims discount, would it be legal to have them as the main policy-holder and just put myself on as a named driver, to save money on the premium?

Will your friend actually be the main driver. For example will your friend be:

• The person who regularly uses a car to drive to or from work / place of education  
• The person who uses the car for the highest percentage of the time
• The person who uses the car on a daily basis  

Otherwise what you're suggesting is called "fronting" and is illegal.
  

The policy holder or the named driver can be the main driver, it doesn't matter as long as it's correctly declared.

Fronting is when you deliberately state one user is the main driver when they're not to get a cheaper premium.

Aretnap

Also, who the main driver is only matters if the insurance company actually asks the question (or mentions it in their assumptions). There are a fair few insurers who actively do not care which of you is the main driver, so will not ask.