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?

Agree. There's this mad obsession for people on this site to get their DC passed their test aged 17! Waiting a few years won't do any harm,🤷🏻

I didn't pass until I was 21, learning aged 20. I got there just the same. Cost of insurance considerably less.

My eldest has a Young Scot card to get around cities and towns by bus up to ages 21/22. I can see him learning to drive around this age.

Insurance has gone up massively in the last few months. I think people will be unpleasantly surprised when they renew. We haven't had the renewal yet for the car our young adult DC share but we've had our own family car renewal recently and it has leapt. No accidents. We're dreading the DCs one coming through.

I’m dreading this..and it’s not long till I have to sort it all out.

We live in a rural location, no buses here, a car is essential! Both kids will need a car at 17/18..

@Hellocatshome its not a “voice of reason” 🙄. Not all adults need cars either. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 26 - I functioned as an adult perfectly well. I have friends in their 50s who still don’t drive.

Some have to - there was a push for me to learn at 17 because I was going away to college and living there. Very rural location. I needed to be able to drive from halls of residence to work and back (late nights as a waitress), then from halls of residence to my horse and also halls to home
Not everyone drove at first but probably 90% of us did by the age of 18 as it was so rural

It’s definitely still a thing to learn to drive at 17 at dc’s sixth form. Mostly parent funded lessons, some self funded.
Car wise most are just driving their mums as a named driver.
Only a few have own cars and usually have an added reason eg rural and now able to drive siblings to school.
Job wise it’s often teens who need to drive as they usually work anti social hours in hospitality - 6am shifts on a Sunday at McDonald’s no bus, country pubs etc.

I bought mine a cheap, low mileage Matez last year and insurance with BB was £800. With his dads maintance payments I'd saved up. He never drove it. I sold it 6 month later. This year he's got a girlfriend he wants to visit and bought himself an old 1.8lt car with a million miles on the clock. Insurance was £3K which came down to £1.2K when he added me and tweaked the estimated mileage.
I have no cash to pay for a car or insurance . Without his dads money I guess he'd have to have worked before going to uni. Alot. Not a bad thing but really out of the reach of young people that don't live close to somewhere that it pays to work.

In my 40s, and didn't get help from my parents. I had to pay for my own theory test, driving lessons and practical test, pay for my own car, fuel, insurance etc etc. Nothing was just handed to me.

Indeed. MN is hilarious at times, little understanding of how many places don’t just have infrequent public transport, but zero public transport. No bus service to this village, whatsoever. And as for ‘Just get an Uber’, lol, ‘Let them eat cake’.

It’s pretty common to learn to drive at 17 where we live as well. We are rural with questionable public transport so that’s probably why. I would say more teens learn to drive than don’t. For us personally, it was money well spent. Our youngest dc will also learn when he is 17.

Insurance is expensive for teenage boys because they are the most likely to be involved in an accident. I was always glad this was the case as it priced my teenagers out of the market, and I had absolutely no intention of helping them get behind the wheel until considerably older.

I passed my test as an 18 year old in 2006. My mum bought my car and was the registered keeper. She had a policy (3rd party, fire and theft as it was a cheap run around) and I was a named driver. It made it a lot cheaper but not sure if it’s allowed!

Lots of teens near us live at home and commute by car to Uni as it’s more affordable than living away even factoring in insurance.

Exactly. It isn't cheap is it even for adults.

As to being a 'named driver' if the driver has an accident in the main driver's car then the main driver is held accountable for and will affect their insurance/claims etc.

Placemarking!

Everyone on this site seems to 'live rurally' as well. 🤷‍♀️

I grew up in Essex. My parents supported me with the car and first years insurance. That was in the days when you had to ring round the insurers for quotes…

my kids both passed in sixth form. We only had an automatic so they could not practise with us but they managed to pass just from their manual driving lessons. We are in London and none of them need to drive. It is just easier to pass whilst living at home and having the luxury of school holidays. It can of course be done later in life and at university too.

We did marmalade Insurance which paid for them to have a few hundred miles a year for around £400 I think. You can top it up. As they only drove when they came back from university holidays and even then not long distances, that was more than enough for us.

I expect they won’t really need a car for a decade or more, but I am pleased that they have their licence to use whenever they need comes. We have brilliant public transport so do not need a car here. I worry about them being on the roads with the other idiot drivers around. I am much happier if they are on the tube or on buses!

Yes it certainly has jumped up. Our son is 23 and has been driving for five years, he’s made no claims in that time and there were no changes since his previous insurance renewal apart from him being one year older.

His renewal price was £1580 after paying £840 previously. We shopped around and got it down to £960 with a different insurer.
He called his insurers to cancel the automatic renewal and they offered to price match. Too late, and if they’d priced it at that in the first place they’d have kept him as a customer.

We are in a village near a market town so not particularly rural but no buses early or late. You couldn’t get to most places teens work without a car, certainly not for the hours scheduled.
Nearest city is only 16 miles but needs a lift to station, 2 unreliable trains and is 90 mins each way (I did it last week as car was in garage)
I’d imagine lots of areas are similar.

Plenty of kids live rurally and can't drive purely because its so expensive and there isn't anything that pays them or their parents enough.

There's still the kudos of passing your test at 17 in certain circles too. I always remember how smug DS cousins were when he failed his first test ( as the eldest) and the next cousin passed first time a week later. She however had been bought her own car to practise in after passing her theory whilst poor DS had a lesson every fortnight as that was all I could afford.
( he rebooked and passed on a cancellation after 10 days at a totally unknown test centre miles away so I still think he's the better driver😁)

@Mademetoxic given only 1/5 of our population is rural they do seem to be rather over represented on Mumsnet 😂

@Marchintospring I totally agree and think bragging rights have far more to do with all these 17 yr olds racing to pass their test than necessity 🙄

😂

@Mademetoxic Uber doesn't exist in my area. I was amazed how easily my daughter gets around in Manchester by Uber, but that's a city. It's not the same here.

A regular taxi every morning at 6am would probably cost about 100 pounds a week. And that's if you can get one. They aren't always available. Even expensive car insurance works out favourably, as you can also then use the car for other journeys.