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?

@Almostwelsh which is all well and good if you have £3K for a car and insurance. Many families in rural parts don't. If the parents don't drive/have access to a car/money the kids have no hope of learning. Rural kids get used to bikes and walking like city kids do buses.

My son waited till he was 21 to get a car. It is auto Fiesta. We are in the outskirts of London. It was 1.5k to get him insured with no black box. He learnt to drive a manual.

My dd started driving in July last year when she passed her test - a year after getting a car for her 18th. My middle daughter will be 17 in July and will have lessons and test as soon as driving ready and tests available.

Don’t live rurally, walked to school or rode their bikes, which takes 7 mins. Car is very much a want rather than a need, and don’t feel need to justify our decision to enable dc to drive early.

@Marchintospring the teens I'm talking about are earning a wage and fund it themselves. I'm just responding to the idea that not all teens need a car. Lots are working unsociable hours at that age.

As for getting a moped, riding one of those in the dark in bad weather on rural roads with no speed restrictions is terrifying. Ditto for cycling. I wouldn't walk miles in the dark on roads without pavement myself, so I don't expect teens to either. When it's dark in the countryside it's properly dark.

Some teens do need to drive.

Bank of mum and dad funding all this?
Or have the teens paid it all for themselves and funded the insurance, car maintenance, MOT etc.

I grew up middle of no where . What jobs? Pubs and babysitting unless you have parents that can give you lifts.
Some teens have no choice about driving because its unaffordable. "Need" doesn't come into it rural or not.

The majority of teens do not need to drive, or cannot afford to do it.

Mixture of savings from birthdays etc and us. We’ll pay for first year insurance, tax and MOT, but expect dc to pay for their own petrol.

I didn't learn to drive until I was 23. I couldn't afford it beforehand. I passed my test but didn't have a car for a few years after that due to costs.

My 18 year old DD needs a car for work. The location leaves her with no option and she was recently quoted over £15k for insurance on a corsa.

Will they go running to you if they need new tyres? Or any other expensive repairs?

4 tyres on my small little car cost me £500 to replace.

I have a sense of pride that my car that I own I funded myself.

Cars are a luxury.

You're not doing your children (as 17 is a child as they're not fully mature) any favours by paying for their cars.
They will not realise how expensive cars are to keep, how to fund it themselves. They will be in for a shock when they have to pay for it themselves (if it all)...

@Mademetoxic I think that's fairly typical actually. Most of my friends are average to affluent and all of us bought our kids driving lessons when they turned 17. Some lost interest when the tests became so difficult to book, kids went off to uni and will probably start lessons
again at some point in the future.

I work with families in rural social housing and for many young people especially single parent households, lessons let alone a car are out of the question. Of the families that don't drive, its the parents not the kids who are most often learning as they need it more.

To be fair if it wasn't for credit any people wouldn't be able to get on the road at all/

Haven't renewed this year yet, but we put DD new car on our multicar, with both of us as named drivers, and it even reduced our own cars insurance! It also reduced when she took it to uni.

She was 19, on a Fiat 500 1.2, fully comp, no box, at £1,500 odd.

Teens living in London or other cities - yeah they don't need to drive.

But you don't have to be excessively rural to find public transport or taxis thin on the ground especially at unsociable hours.

I live about a 20 minute drive from a town. Our village has no bus service before 8am or after 5pm Mon-Fri and nothing at the weekend. There is no Uber, even in my closest small town and taxis are reluctant to come out to the villages and charge a lot.

The roads between my village and the town are unlit, no pavement and are mostly 60mph speed limits. They aren't suitable for walking or cycling, especially in the dark.

I wouldn't choose to live here if I had my time again and I do plan to move, but it isn't feasible in the next couple of years. It isn't great for teens, but there are many teen apprentices locally who live in villages similar to mine. They mostly spend their wages on running a car, out of necessity.

I see it a different way, in that buying my dc their cars isn’t about giving them an education In maintenance. We bought their phones, they pay the monthly charge and eg if it gets a cracked screen. Same principal with their cars - we buy, they maintain.

My eldest takes an Uber if she’s going to drink when she goes out, so she budgets for that from her p/t job. You post reminded me that her MOT is due soon, so I messaged to remind her, and she replied with a thumbs up. So I’m pretty sure she’s not expecting us to pay.

Also, is shame the opposite of pride? As I don’t see why my dc might feel shame, in not funding their cars.

Like anything else we give them, they feel grateful and then get on with it.

I do see your point to some extent, but I think it’s an odd way to look at a car purchase.

That’s insurance fraud

@Bridgertonned because on dark rural roads with large agricultural vehicles, pot holes, floods and big vehicles I know what comes out best.

Do you know what 1/5 of 67 million is?

But you are funding their cars as you're paying for their insurance. Without that they'll be driving illegally.
They're in for a nasty shock when they have to pay their insurance themselves when their first year runs out, alongside their MOT, car repairs etc....

We have two family cars. DS is the main driver on the smaller one but it is not “his “ car. He does use it the most and drove himself to school every day once he passed his test. It wasn’t the plan, but DH had a stroke and wasn’t able to drive for a while. This caused logistic problems because we are rural. The only solution was for DS to drive himself.
He's now on a gap year and is around when I’m at work to chauffeur his dad around when needed. DH can drive again but is no longer confident on unfamiliar routes.
To be honest it has been a godsend, having another driver has taken the pressure off me. Depending on the premiums I am going to put him as named driver on our big car so that when he goes to Uni he will be able to do some of the driving.

When I learned to drive my dad let me borrow one of the cars at home in exchange for driving my younger sisters to after school activities. Most evenings I was taxiing them somewhere.

Although we refer to the car as DS’s we just replaced one of our cars with one he could drive. We had two cars before hand we still have just two cars.

Just to point out that in rural areas you need to pay for a double lesson in order to get somewhere with standard road driving. That in excess of £60 round here. The average driver needs 40 lessons apparently so that’s £1200 plus the £23 theory test. Then it’s the £60 test plus the extended session to use the instructors car if needed.
That’s nearly £1.5k before you even get to buying and insuring an actual car. It’s out of the reach of many families sadly. No matter how much they need their own transport compared to those in cities. I think it would boost the economy no end if everyone rurally could drive.

Not quite. As I said, my eldest has already had her car for over a year, but only passed in July. She funds it herself.

My middle dd might be a different story though, I grant you that, but we’ll see when that time comes.

You can always teach them yourself. I taught DS. I spent time online researching then planned the first few lessons. Then I made him drive everywhere for 3 months. He drove the 11 miles to school ( rural then into the city) and also drove home. We spent at least an hour every evening pottering around the city ( where he took his test) so he had experience of urban driving.
He passed 2nd time. His first test he failed because he pulled up on a curb ( all the cars on the road were parked on the curb) but knew immediately he’d messed up.
We calculated that he had done at least 150hrs of driving when he took his first test.
It doesn’t have to cost a fortune but you do have to have nerves of steel and infinite patience.
I think we only fell out once, he is a quick learner and is easy to coach. We did have great fun though.

Small engine.
Black box.
You and DH both as named drivers.
Only insure for the milage that the car will be driven.