New driver teenage car insurance minefield £££

[NotBabiesForLong]

Any suggestions or advice for a policy which doesn't cost a small fortune, for a current provisional driver policy which will convert into a passed driver policy (fingers crossed she passes)

[BackforGood]

There are often threads on this.
It might be well to do them separately - the good ones for provisional aren't necessarily the good ones for 'just passed'.

Marmalade is often mentioned on these threads (nut actually didn't come out well for either of my dc). There are just so many factors that influence it - it is a task for the new driver to spend some hours messing around with. Boring, but can literally save hundreds and hundreds of £££

[yeOldeTrout]

get a black box
Dunno, DS had to phone around a lot

[beccy11]

We used Sky insurance when dd was learning, they don't convert at a competitive price when they pass. Approx £400 for her provisional year
When she passed we went with more than smart wheels- reasonably cheap (black box obviously) £900 for the first year and dropped to £500 at renewal

[TheTeenageYears]

We have found Adrian Flux really reasonable for insurance as a provisional driver of own car. When DS passes test he'll only have 2 hours to change the policy over before it becomes invalid. Once he eventually gets a test date i'll get quotes from them and others and decide on the best option which will probably involve a black box.

[cuntryclub]

2 different things entirely. I would look at them individually.

We got the cheapest new driver quote from Direct Line - just over £1200 for a brand new FIAT 500 with no black box.

[Thunderpunt]

Look on money saving expert for a step by step guide on how to find the cheapest provisional insurance. That will automatically cancel as soon as he passes and you then have to buy a new one

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Money saving expert has a bit dedicated to new driver insurance but basically go on all the comparison sites, add older drivers with decent driving history as named drivers, be honest about how many miles they will do as less miles will be cheaper. Keep the learner and new driver as separate things as won't necessarily be the cheapest to get from same place.

I'm the end we were just under £700 to insure 17 year old DS1, 9 months later DS2 passed and we added him on for an extra 100. So that was then an 18 and a 17 year old for around £800. Renewal was around £550 and 3rd year for 19 and 18 year old was only £350 with 2 years no claims. First 2 years were with a box and with Insure the box. This year is with admiral and no box.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

We also found veygo which is part of admiral reasonable for learner cover. You can get a policy for anything from 2 hours upwards. 2 hours for us cost just over £4.

[NotBabiesForLong]

Thanks for your replies. I had a marmalade quote initially for 12 months to cover from provisional moving on to passed at some point during the year if she passes. With no claims bonus counting from day 1. This came out at about £1100. I thought it was high at the time but am now thinking it wasnt too bad.

I bought a 3 month learner driver marmalade policy as it was lock down and I wasn't sure what would happen. This is now about to end. This cost £250 and although dd has passed theory, there is no sign of driving tests so I am unsure how long to go for another learner driver.

Sterling have quoted £350 for 12 months learner only. But others are coming in around £690 and I am lead to believe they transfer from a learner policy to a passed policy....but it isn't quite clear.

Feels like I am going round and round in circles googling.

[netflixismysidehustle]

My dd is learning and I'm going for separate learner and new driver policies.

[NotBabiesForLong]

Has anybody any inkling when tests might be available to book post lock down?

[DestinyIsAll]

Similar experience and therefore advice as WaxOn above.

I had eldest dd and 18 year old dtwins pass close together two years ago, eldest ds a couple of years earlier.

If she’s not chosen a specific car you can look at some in her budget on E.g. Autotrader, where you can leave the make/model blank and select e.g., lower insurance bracket and smaller engine size to get an idea . Then run quotes on the theoretical cars on Compare the Market, Money Supermarket and Go Compare. I couldn’t get a lower premium with any specific independent young driver insurer, we most often have the best results using Compare the Market.

You can play around with certain things to see if it might bring down the premium, such as, assuming you have long held a clean licence, putting yourself or DH on as an additional driver, selecting a higher compulsory excess and/or less miles, and definitely selecting telematic (black box) only policies. You can also run quotes with prov and full licences to compare.

First year we were with Insure the Box and Carrot (Aviva), the Insure the Box policy was converted from prov to full cover for a smallish additional payment. This year Hastings and Admiral (black box Policies) have been lowest.

We live in Suffolk which lowers our premiums, but mine paid in the first year £700-£800 for 1.4l engine cars worth about 1k. A couple of years in they are paying £500 ish, though two are planning to upgrade shortly.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

It's definitely worth seeing id a higher excess will reduce the policy significantly. They will want a decent excess for a young driver anyway, but the way i looked at it, if I could get £200 off the policy for a £200 higher excess then it was worth it. worse case scenario is that you take cheaper policy, they have an accident and you have to pay the extra £200, best case is that they don't and you've saved £200. More chance of saving the money than not but you are no worse off.

[MrsAvocet]

Yes it is a minefield. My middle child will be learning soon and things seem to have got worse than when his elder sister was a learner.
When DD was learning we didn't have an ideal car for her to learn in so bought her a car as soon as she began learning. Obviously in those circumstances it was right that she had her own insurance as the car was in her name and she genuinely was the main driver. It ended up being cheaper to insure her for her own car than as a named driver on mine anyway.
This time there is no reason why DS couldn't practice in one of our existing cars so we weren't planning to buy him his own car until he's passed. I had assumed it would be a simple, if costly, matter to ring up and get him added to our existing policy, but it seems not. Our insurers have said that they do not allow learner drivers to be added as named drivers so it looks like we are going to have to cancel the policy - if we can find someone else that will cover him that is. Its very annoying. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has managed to add a learner to an existing policy recently, and if so, which company it was with.
Also a word of caution re black boxes. Check the small print very carefully as some of the policies are extremely restrictive. For example, some of the ones we looked at didn't allow driving on single track or unmade roads, which probably isn't an issue if you live in a town or city, but would have been a major problem for us. DD wouldn't have been able to drive to many of her friends, her dance lessons or our house in fact! Also some had a curfew of 10pm which would have been fine when she was learning but we felt it was too restrictive once she had passed. And the policies weren't even that much cheaper.
We eventually decided that the relatively modest cost savings that a black box would have given us weren't worth the inconvenience. Every policy seemed to be different though so it is definitely worth checking them all very carefully.
Watch the excesses too. When DD did the searching herself she got some quotes that sounded great at first, but when I went through them it turned out that the excess was huge. My fault really as it hadn't occurred to me that she wouldn't understand that, but fortunately I realised before we paid anything and we both learned a lesson.

[NotBabiesForLong]

Mrs avocet, Marmalade do a bolt on policy so you dont need to change your insurance. We bought 3 months learner driver for dd. This allows her to drive my car. This has now just run out and still no sign of a test opening up. So dd now has her own car and we need to obtain her own insurance.

Marmalade also do a 12 month bolt on which converts from L to passed driver. But it is £££

I agree with what you say about black boxes to check the fine detail.

[TheTeenageYears]

Re test bookings. There is obviously a huge backlog of all the cancellations from mid March onwards. The government announced on 1st July that tests would start on 22nd July but no emails went out from DVSA until 16th July about rebooking tests for those affected. That's being done in batches depending on how early on your original test was. Presuming they won't be able to test as many people as they normally do in a day (don't know that, just strongly suspect it) it's going to take an age before tests are available to anyone who didn't have one cancelled. I'm hoping they will also then prioritise those who had theory tests cancelled during lockdown as they have also been held up in the driving process.

[mylittlesandwich]

I did well on both with admiral but I was older when I passed. I played around with my policies on a comparison site. Ran quoted as a learner and then as a new driver to see how they compared.

[Toomboom]

My son passed his test when he was 17 two years ago. He drives a 12 yr old Clio, his insurance with black box was £1600 --- far more than the car was worth. Last year, after driving for a year, his insurance was down to about £1200. He is hoping this year it will be under a thousand.

Look at as many sites as you can to compare prices. We found that it was far cheaper to have a black box, some companies refuse to insure if you say no to black box.

[cuntryclub]

We found that it was far cheaper to have a black box,

For DD the difference was £250 but it was absolutely worth every penny as that was with a mileage restriction and curfew. She had been driving almost 2 years now and has knocked up almost 40,000 miles and has needed to drive many times after the 11pm curfew offered with the cheaper option for work etc. Her second year insurance was £900 (£1200 first year) still with Direct Line.

The conditions of the black box would not have suited her at all.

[TeenPlusTwenties]

We bought a car for DD1 to learn in but it was in DH's name as owner and main driver. This was true as we made sure DH drove it around more than DD did.
We used Admiral multicar and it was very reasonable.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

My sons black box didn't have restrictions but they could earn extra mileage on the insurance for good driving. They aren't all the same but it is important as PP says to check that any restrictions aren't going to be a problem. A friend's daughter had an issue in that hers restricted late night driving but she had a job that finished late and then had a longish drive to her college accommodation afterwards. They didn't realise but ended up having to move insurance after getting warnings.

[BackforGood]

My older two couldn't find a black box that would save them money and be workable for them, as, like so many young people the jobs they have involved shifts that meant the times they wanted to drive would be off limits to them.
Agree not all are the same, so you do need to go through the details with a fine tooth comb. Like MrsAvocet we had that with my ds and dd not really understanding about comparing like for like and making sure the excess and cover were the same. Another reason why it is good for them to do the searching with you doing the checking, so they learn all this stuff.

The amounts vary so much with postcode though, so one person paying X doesn't mean it will be available to another of course.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone has managed to add a learner to an existing policy recently, and if so, which company it was with

Not sure how recently you mean, but I've added newly passed dcs on to my insurance 4 yrs ago and 2 years ago. Then changed cars and policies shortly afterwards with ds, so was able to do this with 3 different companies (we tend to change our insurance most years, so I can't remember which companies I'm afraid, but just saying that there are lots of companies that do allow you you add your dc on, for sure.

[NotBabiesForLong]

I eventually purchased a 12 month learner/passed driver black box policy in dd own name with marmalade. It worked out £1066 for 10000 miles with 400 excess by including my husband on the policy.

Adding me on was a further £250

Immediately that I purchased it I realised I had bought the wrong one as I had about 15 various quotes open then. Cue more phone calls and waiting online to correct my mistake.

I don't like to do things the easy way do I.

[Blobby10]

NotBabiesForLong haven't seen them mentioned here but my daughter used Ingenie for the past 3 years. They specialise in young drivers ,. It does involve a black box but if the driver consistently scores well on the criteria they get cash back every quarter. not a lot but daughter got £70 the first year! She had an 08 plate Clio with me as a named driver.

[Oblomov20]

Watching with interest. We are about to start all this.