To be hacked off with insurance companies?

[StudiousSal]

DS1 passed his driving test today, 1st time bless him, my dad left him his old car, which is not worth much at all.

I've been trawling the internet all day the cheapest company, want £3,553.00 a year.

He can't afford this, he's still looking for work, and I can't afford to help him out, he's so down now.

I see.

So. Who would be the main driver if me and my husband had one car and he was self employed, working from home, but going marketing to customers and I used the car for the school run and shopping etc and he took it after the school run and went to see a customer and he drove us as a family sometimes and I drove us as a family sometimes?

Me because I do the school runs, or him because he uses it during the day to visit customers?

You need to speak to your insurer really, as we have policies with aviva where we are named drivers on both of our policies, no-one is the main driver. As we use both cars equally.

If you have one car, and pretty much you both drive it equally, then it doesn't matter. But in your case, he needs to be the main driver as he needs to be insured for domestic, pleasure and business, and you just need d&p.

This won't help you now OP, but what I did was have DD as a named driver on my policy until she passed her test & bought her own car.

In that time she built up a year's NCD which she was able to transfer to her own policy (had to be with the same insurance company).

I would definitely ask about fully comprehensive - it's often cheaper for higher risk people because they see asking for only 3rd party etc as making you a risk.

My husband and I are named drivers on each other's policies but swap the cars around to keep the mileage about even. I said so to the insurer and they didn't mind who was the policy holder. Might be worth asking your own insurer if they have any advice or going through a broker?

Once you've got that first year out of the way it should drop quite a bit. Might be worth running a quote on him with 1 years experience & no claims so he can see how much it will drop. I was always shocked at the difference between premiums for girls vs boys with same experience.

I would be inclined to put you or your DH down as the main policy holder and your DS as a named driver.

that will bring down the premium.

sorry, just noticed lots of people saying not to do this.

If you do it and maybe have a proviso that your DS doesn't drive often on his own?
he does need practice, though, so you can't have the car as your own and just let him use it.
Whe I passed my test, my dad used to make me drive all the time in their car - it made me the main driver for a few months, but i wasn't, because it was my dad's car.
but he could see how important it was for me to get the practice.

(and I didn't know it was an offence, btw - I was working on who would take responsibility for the insurance payments etc)

I can see that would look dodgy!

(and i wasn't taking yours personally! :) )

I bought my first car when I was 17, did Pass Plus (for free - my surrogate father is a driving instructor) & paid for my own insurance on my ford fiesta - it was approx £600 from diamond.

My car failed it's MOT just under a year later & I couldn't afford another. My parents bought me a little car under the proviso that my one-year-younger brother could share it.

With him on the insurance in the little Peugeot the insurance was £1200.

Two days after his test he wrote the car off by driving like a loony. My parents felt guilty that he'd wrecked the shared car so bought US another. We didn't claim on insurance

6 months later I bought my own car and insured myself separately, a week after that my brother crashed into a wall, with friends in the car, under the influence. He had to claim on insurance & was banned from driving for 12months.

One year later he couldn't afford to drive as his insurance would be £3,500

YANBU. I am so sorry but it's plonkers like my brother & his friends (one of his friends killed a young lad who was on a motorbike with his car, one knocked one of the children that I babysit over when he was playing in the street & broke his leg) that spoil it for the responsible boys.

Please be extra vigilant with your son though. My mum caught my bro DUI & took his keys off him for the rest of that day - he wasn't going to be driving that day anyway. I think she should have done it for much longer & maybe he wouldn't have done it again - I said this at the time.

I hate car insurance companies. We've just settled a claim for our car being written off after the other party admitted complete fault (she just didn't look and pulled right out into path of DH). Our insurance company has told us that when our renewal date comes up then the accident will be taken into account when calculating the premium. I said "What?! Even though this has gone through our side as a totally no-fault claim and the other party accepted total liability and you are recouping all costs from the other party's insurance company?!!"

And they said "Unfortunately, whether it's your fault or not, just the fact that your DH was involved in an accident will be taken into account when you come to renew."

FFS.....

Thanks for that info, SugarMousePink - I will definitely do that!

I know sugarmousepink EVERY boy in my brother's old secondary class of 30 (16 boys) had written off a car before they were 20!

In my friend group most of the boys at least had a crash.

One of my friends wrote of 3 nice cars within 6 months - I never understood why his parents kept buying him new ones!

I sympathise. We tried everything to try and reduce the insurance for our DD when she passed her test at 17 last year. When renewal came up this year, we asked if we could just add her to our insurance, but that rocketed our insurance up into the thousands.

It is best, although horrifically expensive, to let your DS have his own insurance and build up his no claims. We paid monthly for our DD - it was £162 a month last year which is basically a car loan! This year it is just under £100.

You can sometimes get a slightly better deal, I was quoted £1100 but I said I could not pay more than £1,000 and it was agreed with some adjustments. In with this I got free breakdown (local only).

Regarding excess, DDs is high at £400, but we could take out a small policy with the brokers which would cover this in the event of an accident. Strange but true. Our brokers were Swinton who would probably not be first choice for young drivers.

I'd be interested to know anyone who has managed to get a better deal so I can change next year.

Erm it's not bullshit. Hubby was in a non fault claim 3 years ago. It was non fault, totally 100% all the other parties liability come renewal it's still declarable as a claim.

I know you work in ins SP, but everytime we have applied for insurance each year, we have always had to answer yes to the question, have you had a claim within the last 5 years, even if not at fault.

No matter what insurance companies tell you, it bloody well does put your premium up some crap about if you have been in an accident even if not at fault you are statistically more likely to be in one again. We go through this every year with loads on insurance quotes, declaring the claim which we have too puts the premium up.

Sugarmousepink

I've yet to come across an insurance company that doesn't do this, or if there is one, they're way more expensive than all the others to begin with.

I had a no fault accident in a hire car (rear ended) when I didn't even have my own car or insurance, yet this still puts my premium up as it happened in the last 5 years. It is very easy to test, just by going onto a comparison website and declaring it and not declaring it.

After getting my car stolen this year, even though it was recovered undamaged, my car insurance increased from 300 to 1000. The increase alone was more than the cost of the claim!