To ask how on earth we can help to get DS affordable car insurance?

[SlimJimmin]

Has anyone helped to buy and insure a car for their DC as a new driver very recently? Insurance prices are just crazy, and even crazier than ever it seems. Does anyone have the magic formula? I wondered if there’s a type of car we should be looking for which hits the sweet spot of being one he’ll actually ‘be seen dead in’ 🙄🙈 but also doesn’t cost the absolute earth to insure due to age/mileage/engine size etc? Is there a specific insurer you’ve found who can offer a more reasonable premium? We know about adding ourselves as additional drivers but still prices are astronomical. DSS bought his first car last year and prices seem to have shot through the roof for insurance even since then, and we’re wondering if we can even get him on the road at all at this rate, which we really could do with doing to help his plans for when he finishes college in summer (many options he’s looking at for his future seem to want a driving license).

Thank you so much if you have done this very recently and can offer any tips!

Unfashionable car (DS drives a Kia rio). Small engine, less than1.0 l if you can. You are a named driver.

Year one was £1800, just paid year 2 which was £1100. So it does go down, he is still 18.

Thank you everyone for the replies. We have just spent 2 hours trying every type of car (fashionable and not), all sorts of ages/engine sizes and they’re invariable coming back at £4500-£5800 per year! 🙈 No idea where to go from here!

DS18 has just passed his test and has VW Up, his insurance cost £3,500 with Quotemehappy.com, it was the cheapest we could find.

Several years ago I got a reasonable deal through Tesco Insurance and discount if you have a Club Card. Have a black box fitted ( then you can track them and see where they are when they are out late).....

Have you tried Churchill or directline? My daughter passed at 17 but it was August 2022 when did. She paid £1.2k for the 1st year and then the renewal this year was £800. She bought a mini cooper 1.6 so bit bigger engine.

@SlimJimmin where do you live? Are you in a big city ?

I've been looking at the costs for this recently and oddly enough insuring DD on my husbands car wasn't as expensive as I expected. I had been looking at what it would cost on small 1.2ltr cars and it seemed an awful lot. But to add her to DH 12 year old Ford focus 1.6 deasel as a learn would only be £300 and as a new driver only £800. Where as you would be looking at £1000's for a smaller car. Of course this would be her just added on as a named driver. So I do think there are cheaper cars to insure them on then small petrol cars.

Look at marmalade. It was a lot cheaper for my son who was 17. You pay a one off for the year which gets the driver 1000 miles I think and then pay for more miles as they use them. I think I paid c950 and then 140 or so for each additional 1000 miles. Works well for children that don’t do so many miles.

It can depend a lot on where you live. When I learned to drive I was 30, but living in a city centre. The cheapest insurance I could get was 2.5k and that was paying up front, for a 1.2 Corsa. And that was ten years ago!

Bear in mind that if you add as a named driver and they're not really a named driver - ie they're using the car as theirs - it's 'fronting' and they won't pay out if he has an accident. Insurers will do anything to get out of paying, it's not worth the risk.

My son passed at 18 and got a few year old Peugeot 208, small engine and it cost about £1800 to insure with me as a named driver. It’s gone down this year. My nephew and niece both got Fiestas and paid just over £2k in their first year.

It is worth setting the start date a month out or at the least 20 days out. Shows a less risky character type. Don't use a hotmail address, some insurers mark down on this. It's also worth playing around with his profession- don't lie- but if there isn't a great match for what he does (there usually isn't for what I do) and his job falls across two categories some professions are a lot worse rated.

We bought a car in DH’s name for DD when she was learning. Insured in his name and added her to use it to give her lessons after she’d had about 20 hours with an instructor. I was a named driver too so we could both take her out for lessons.

I think total insurance was about £60 a month then when she passed her test (took her test in it too with DH in the back), she was added as additional driver and I think it’s about £55 a month now. We’ll keep it like that until she’s got a few years driving under her belt (just over a year now since passing). It’s a sporty mini type of car too so very surprised at how little the insurance was.

Hoping insurance won’t be too high when she takes out her own insurance after being a named driver for a few years with no claims as yet. She was 22 though so could have been more expensive if under 21.

DS is 21 and we’ll be doing the same for him (will use DD’s car to teach as mine and mine and DH’s cars are automatics and they can share until DD gets her own) now he’s finally passed his theory and managed to book a block of lessons with an instructor. Be interested to see if it comes up more expensive to add him as a male driver!

We used Sheila’s Wheels for DD learning and switched to Geoffrey Insurance after she passed as cheaper quote on renewal. Fully comp insurance.

We want to get a car for DS2 to learn in and DS1 to use when home from Uni for work, etc. God knows what the insurance will be as DS1 (20) will have to have the policy with DS2 (17) as a named driver 😯

Has he passed his driving test yet?

How would an insurer know how often the main and named drivers drive the car though?

My dd passed a few months before leaving for uni. She went on insurance for my car in the summer for practise (I think it was £5 a day 5 years ago) Then at Xmas and Easter. She would do 2-3 weeks at a time. So cost around £100 a time.

After 3 years she bought a car and th insurance was around £600

A bicycle is where you go until he is earning enough to pay and old enough for insurance to be reasonable. DD learnt aged 30.

What about a Fiat Panda? Surely that's gotta be cheaper.

A bicycle is where you go until he is earning enough to pay and old enough for insurance to be reasonable. DD learnt aged 30.

🙄 Helpful.

Not really. If they're saying it is too expensive what is the alternative.

It's madness paying that much for insurance. Just wait a few years.

If it is a £500 claim then it won’t matter. But the sort of damage that you can do with a car has almost unlimited liability. If he drives into a school bus queue and paralyses a load of 6 year olds then it could cost millions.

At which point the insurance company would investigate very very thoroughly.

If you are the main named driver on the insurance you need to drive the sodding car!

Incidentally I don’t suppose the Op’s dss has a nice girlfriend or boyfriend? Dh and I married very young indeed and bought our first car around the time of the wedding. Originally we were supposed to pick the car up 3 days before the wedding but it then got delayed so we picked it up a couple of days afterwards instead. When changing the start date for the insurance Dh realised that he had better change our marital status as well. (Which we found adorable - like I said - very young!) At which point our premium fell massively.

Maybe a bit too extreme a solution??? 😂

You want to have a parent as main driver with DS1 as named driver and add DS2 for learning. Make sure the policy allows DS2 to take his test in it. He can then also be a named driver when he’s passed. If DS1 is at away at Uni, won’t one of the parents be taking DS2 out in it to learn anyway and he won’t be the main driver if he’s only using it when home in holidays?

My eldest has passed his test but won't have insurance until he's over 21 and had licence more than a year.
It's too expensive otherwise and just not worth it.
We use a stand alone temporary insurance policy for a day for him to drive the car occasionally

I will not be spending that much on insurance. Hence the question. I said clearly in my OP that I’m wondering if we’ll get him on the road at all at this rate. My question was is there a way to stop it being so ridiculously expensive.

And to answer the bicycle question, he would love nothing more. We had to give up on that when he saved up for a lovely bike to take out into the countryside with his friends to take photos. We contributed the last bit for Christmas, and he then was forced off it and thrown in the road. While they rode off on the bike. We had to claim on insurance (!) for it and get him another. Guess what? That was stolen while it was double locked in full view of CCTV and with a tracker on it at the gym. Despite our and the police’s efforts we never got it back and had to claim again. He was then too scared to get another bike. Perhaps it’s where we live after all. About an hour from a large city in a ‘lovely’ area that comes up on here a lot as somewhere recommended to move to.

@CanNeverThinkOfAName they will investigate and if they have doubts over it they won't pay out. If the car accident is during what appears to be a regular commute for example. Or if the 'main' driver is insured on another car.