Teaching son to drive - insurance?

[surlycurly]

Hi all, my son had his provisional and I'm keen to take him out in my car between lessons. Do I need special insurance? I tried to add him into my policy but it won't let me because he under 21, but can he drive my car as a learner? Any advice/ suggestions/ coatings would be greatly appreciated.

Try collingwood or marmalade

We used Collingwood when ours learned to drive

Agree we used marmalade for both dcs

wait the learner needs their own insurance? I thought it was like Australia where the instructor has to be insured and the learner is covered by them (and the instructor therefore fully liable for any accident).

my children are a way off this, but what’s a sort of ballpark figure for insuring a 16 year old to learn?

Yes - Of course you need insurance.
As PP say you need to use a company who will insure learners on your insurance.
Be prepared for the cost to rise plus once he passes to rise again.

The cost to add DS was huge so we just paid for lessons, fortunately he didn’t need many. I think the extra cost was the equivalent of about 20 lessons with an instructor and I thought I am not a driving instructor and I do not have a dual controlled car nor the time. He had however had a couple of flying lessons with cadets and had driven a car on a relatives land, only a little but it gave an indication that he was going to find it ok.

We used Marmalade too.

It's about £60/70 a month with marmalade and you renew it monthly.

@Hiddenmnetter to insure our DS on our car was going to be 2.5k, it’s 17 in the UK to be allowed to learn to drive.

We used marmalade and just put him on for a few months once he'd had some lessons and was already reasonably confident.

So do you keep your own insurance and get separate for the child on marmalade, or all go on marmalade?

If you Google learner driver insurance there are several companies you can choose from. What you want is the learner to have insurance in their own name. We used Veygo. You can insure for specific periods from just an hour, up to about 5 or 6 months. The car must also still be insured by the normal main driver of the car. We found it useful to have the choice of longer terms for when DCs were at home over the summer, or just a couple of hours when back for the weekend and wanted a quick practice.

What you have to be careful about is that some companies specify that the learner must be doing less than 50% of the driving in that car. I think Marmalade was like that. So we couldn't use it as our DCs were learning in a grandparents car which was rarely driven.

You have to get special insurance for a learner who has a provisional licence. It's actually a pretty cheap. No insurer will let you add them to your insurance without a full licence - and even then I couldn't.

However, once they pass, insurance then is ridiculously expensive! My son ended up having to pay nearly £4k.

This might be helpful in the future.

https://gogirl.co.uk/news-and-advice/supervising-learner-responsibilities/

Road traffic laws still apply to you, so you cannot supervise a learner whilst:

• Under the influence of drink or drugs
• Using a handheld mobile phone
• Not wearing glasses or contact lenses if required to do so while driving
• Sleeping
• Taking medication that prohibits you from driving

Wow those are insane figures. £2.5k to just insure them? PROFESSIONAL LESSONS IT IS!

Yeah that’s all the same as Aus when I was taught and when I used to teach my siblings. But that’s mostly just sense- if you’re the instructor you’re still responsible so don’t be pissed…

Or use your phone!

They can't drive until 17.

But it cost me £150 for 6 months insurance on my car with Collingwood.

It's cheaper than professional lessons. Mine paid £60 for an hour and a half lesson.

The insurance for a parent to take them out was £63 a month.

You keep your own insurance and get learner insurance for the child.
I just paid under £200 for four months insurance for my 17 year old.

The learner needs their own insurance if they're going out in the car with you between lessons. If they just have lessons with an instructor they're covered by the instructor's insurance.

Oh I'm glad I found this thread! My insurance was quoting £4500 to add learner DD. I can insure her for the summer for plenty of time to practice for £120 with Marmalade. Thanks guys!

This is incredibly helpful! Thanks all. I'm away to check out marmalade now!

We found the RAC the cheapest for learner add on insurance .

We have Admiral multicar and it cost us £120 to add DC17 to the insurance as a named learner driver in January this year until policy renews in October.

Car is a Citron C1 though so cheapest insurance group.

We expect to go up massively (£1,000 ish) once they pass their test based on previous DC learning/passing.