Removing a provisional driver from insurance and it hasn't changed the premium

Hannah_47

My son has recently passed his driving test. He was insured as a provisional driver on my car. Now he has passed we asked for a quote which is just short of £3k. We are unable to afford that so have removed him from the insurance, we have 10 months left on the policy and the insurance company as not giving us any money back as they are saying it doesn't change the price. It seemed to change the premium when we put him on it, so now we are paying for something that we do not have. Having looked at a comparison site, for a new quote without him on and they are 1/3 of the price. 

How is this right? This seems criminal to me? Taking money for something we are not being provided with. 

Has anyone else had this situation?

DullGreyGuy

Provisional drivers dont tend to add that much because of the fact they are always accompanied, dont go on motorways etc. Even adding wife, who's probably a bit older than your son, to a 4.5L v8 car as a provisional only added a few pounds of premiums.

How much did it add to have him added? How much of that was admin fee? 
What are they saying the return premium is for removing them? What's the admin fee for doing it?

Ultimately if you can get insurance much cheaper elsewhere then look to cancel and start a new policy, make sure you factor in the cancellation charges before pressing the button!

daveyjp

From daughter's experience and that of her friends, adding learners to adult policies isn't how most parents do it now.

The likes of Marmalade provide standalone learner policies which end as soon as the learner passes their test.

DullGreyGuy

daveyjp said:

The likes of Marmalade provide standalone learner policies which end as soon as the learner passes their test.

Cant say I have solid stats to back it up but I doubt such companies have made inroads into the market yet. Marmalade's recently transferred into its sister company and never disclosed its number of customers however the newly enlarged company does. If you make the massive assumption that their commission is proportional to the other brands in the stable then they have circa 23,000 customers across all their products 

Difficult to find how many learner drivers there are at the moment in the UK but the RAC point out that 77,000 have points on their provisional licence and DLG predicted 2.6m would be taking a driving test in 2022 so clearly the numbers are a small proportion of the whole. 

Hannah_47

Its difficult to know how much it affected it, because it was a new car to us when we insured my son. The only comparison I can give is how much it is without him on it now, and it is 2/3 cheaper. I think we are going to leave, they are taking the absolute p**s. If we continue with them its £766 apposed to a new policy which is £202 with same excess etc. 

Thanks for your comments, I think this is such a scam though and it not right how they get away with this robbery!

DullGreyGuy

It's not really robbery when you are free to leave. 

Hannah_47

Its not free though!

DullGreyGuy

Hannah_47 said:

Its not free though!

maybe should have said "able to leave". 

Its not free as they've probably spent in the region of £100 to get your policy set up and you bought a 12 month policy but its you thats moved the goal posts by saying you want a change and as you dont like the price of the change now want to exit the 12 month agreement early. Its still a lot cheaper than seeing the policy through to the end and legally speaking they dont have to give you an option to leave after you've got through the cooling off period.