Car insurance for teens now completely unaffordable?

[ginforall]

Teen is nearing 17 so started looking at potential cars and insurance. I can't believe the prices of car insurance, I knew mine had gone up loads this year, but the price for DS to have his own policy is crazy. For DS it's approx on average £4000 a year depending on the car (this is for older cars, small engines eg VW polo). Do you have the car in your name and add the child to your insurance? Does that make it a lot cheaper? Just interested in how other people mange this?

See what happens if you add yourself/other adult as a named driver

DS insurance came down by a 3rd adding our names to ins. Also type of car etc will have effect on amount.

My son is the main driver on his, he added me, his dad and his brother as additional drivers and it was £1k for the first year on a small car. I love driving it sometimes too!

DS is 17 and we live in London.
He is not learning to drive as whole thing from lessons to buying a ulez compliant car to insurance is stupidly expensive.

to reduce cost buy a car below 1 litre, him as the main driver and you yourself and dh.

Is it because a VW polo is quite a desirable car for that age group?

I've got girls, one has a Fiat 500 and the other a smart car, both with 1L engines and the insurance is £1200ish. With black boxes. The one with a smart car hasn't passed yet so that's just a quote.

My nephew has a citron C1 and his is £1300 with a black box.

You have to try all different configurations. Like one of ours was cheaper if it was parked on the road and not the drive which was unexpected. My sister found nephews was cheaper without her husband on...just her on as the second driver.
Another tip is to start the insurance for two weeks time. That sometimes makes it cheaper.

A VW polo will be a higher insurance group than something like an Aygo. Play around with cars and definitely add yourself / dh as an additional named driver. Don't assume 3rd party only is the cheapest, sometimes comprehensive is the same money or cheaper. Trawl through comparison sites and the direct only insurers as there can be significant differences between insurers - they need to ensure a balanced risk portfolio so they will drop prices for certain groups at certain times to get the number of those policies signed up, then switch focus to another type.

Don't commit fraud by putting yourself as the main driver when you are not. (Ditto keeping the registered address as the family home when the DC and car go off to uni and spend the majority of the time there.)

You should see if adding yourself as a named driver helps, but absolutely should not have it in your name with the teen as a named driver. This would bring the cost down, but you would probably have any claim denied on the grounds of this being illegal fronting.

We kept an old car rather than part exchange it, with the sole intention of keeping it for our son to learn in and then have once he passed.

It had a full no claims discount with both of us as named drivers, and only cost around £250 to put him on as a learner and then around £500p.a. more when he passed and we changed it to him being the main driver.

We'd been planning that for a few years. We deliberately delayed buying a replacement car and kept the older one for ourselves longer than we would have done, so that we minimised the "overlap" where we had 3 cars, only 2 of which were used.

Do you have any similar options, i.e. buy a replacement car for yourself and give your current car to your teen??

A polo will probably be one of the most expensive cars to insure.
You need something sensible like a little skoda. Basically, nothing boy racer.

The powers that be don't want anymore drivers. Even trying to get a test, practical or theory is pretty impossible in London

The driving age of 17 started in 1972, the school leaving age was 15 and changed to 16 same year. Most kids started full time work as young adults. Few stayed in education.
Most now, don't start working until 18- 21 now. Most 'kids' don't need to drive until working.
Insurance costs are high because they are high-risk. Waiting a few years until risk is lower.
If you are running them around as teens just carry on until they can afford it,and costs are lower.
I learnt at 23 as a parent of 2.
DS1 doesn't drive -mid 30s
DS2 motorcycle - early 30s
DD learnt aged 30. insurance was fine, no extortionate cost.

My kids have black box policies and cars that are less desirable than a Polo.

@ginforall we have just added our ds to husband insurance as a named driver and it cost an extra £80

DS1 had a VW Polo as his first car. It was cheaper to insure than a 1.0L Corsa. We used Ingenie to insure it, and subsequently for DS2’s Renault Clio. They have a black box but there’s no curfew with it. They, also, have an app which monitors how they drive so both ours had a reduction in their premiums over the year.

We, also, put the kids down as main drivers then added DH and me as additional drivers which helped.

my friend uses a company called marmalade with a chip or something that connects to her son’s phone I think. it’s only if her son does less than 50% of the mileage and you buy insurance for a certain number of miles, eg 500 miles and seems to be cheaper for them. So suits some situations. It also gives the parent access to their driving score.

My 19 year old owns the car and is the only driver. Car is a Fiesta

First quote was In the region of £4k.
He did the Pass Plus lessons and got a black box, put a friend of mine on as additional driver and got it down to £2,300
As he was going to uni, we put his uni address on and going through a student site managed to get it down again to £1600.
It took me about a week to research and try all possible permutations

After a couple of months he got refunded £100 because he was in the black box limits

DS17 passed last week. He had already bought a 1.2 fiesta as good family friend is a head ford mechanic so cheaper repairs but turned out expensive to insure! £3950 with a black box and only 3000 miles.

And that’s with me & his dad on the insurance!

£3950 with a black box and only 3000 miles.

At £1.30 per mile driven, I think it would be cheaper to get an Uber!

Thanks for all the advice, will try adding myself as a named driver, looking at other car options etc. We have one car in the household currently which is an automatic, so ideally wanted him to learn in a manual and then have a manual car initially, so not an option to have him drive ours/ give him ours when we get new. I knew it would be expensive, but wasn't expecting quite so much.

The marmalade insurance works out at about 60p per mile as I remember for newly-qualified driver of a VW Up where my friend lives. I’m thinking we’ll consider it when the time comes

Black box insurance maybe?

Insurance has leapt up this year ds(19) with 2 years NCD insurance renewal went up from £700 last year to £880 this year (1L fiesta). Dread to think what it would cost as a new driver now.

My DS18 passed his test the week
before christmas, he’s doing an apprenticeship at VW so we were initially looking at a Polo, thinking it was a sensible little car but the insurance was crazy! He’s now got an 06 plate 1.2 Skoda Fabia with a black box and his DF as a named driver. The insurance was £2,600.

A 17 year old doesn't need a car. Wait a few more years until they can fund it themselves.