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!

@VisionsOfSplendour

You can be the main driver on as many cars as you want. Think of the footballers with huge car collections. They're allowed to drive them all.

Lots of people have a main car and a 'fun' car. Not me sadly. I have a rubbish car and an even more rubbish car 😂

Also, I work in insurance 🙂

It's the worst type of false economy, but those who do it won't be dissuaded until it all goes tits up and they are in the frame for insurance fraud with no payout.

You can certainly be insured as main driver on multiple vehicles.

You can't pretend to be the main driver though.

nope...small market town, in the south west. They biked everywhere. The boys had pub jobs clearing plates etc from 15, in a village outside the town, got good jackets, helmets, lights and then rode. Neither drive cars in their 30s now.

Of course I know you can have more than one car, everyone knows that, even surprisingly people who dont work in insurance

The poster was suggesting that they were committing fronting hence my question

Don’t risk “fronting”. He should have a policy in his own name with parents as named drivers.

Insurers price on risk. What can you do to make him lower risk? Get him to do his institute of advanced motorists test. It’s £175 for the course and test …however once the test is passed, IAM refunds 50% if the driver is under 26 Article here

doing the extra course and the IAM test is likely to pay for itself in lower premiums.

he should also be prepared to drive something cheaper to insure for his first year or two. Cool car will have to wait until he’s proven himself in the eyes of the insurers eh.

Not at all emotive. I’m an actuary. We do the sums that back all of this. Emotions are generally beyond us. 😂

On the whole insurance costs for 18 year olds are not at all inflated. On the contrary - traditionally they were subsidised. Not so much now as all the “Go Compare” type sites make it easy to switch insurers so there is less point in getting them in but 20 years ago there was an acceptance that you subsidised young drivers and then got the money back over their lifetime as people tended to stick with the same insurer for years and years. Unfortunately young drivers have a lot of accidents. This may be the reason that prices have gone up for young drivers - no brand loyalty means no desire to get them in.

The other thing that has changed things is gender neutral pricing which was brought in in December 2012. (Do you remember Sheila’s Wheels with the nice singing adverts that suddenly disappeared.) There is a massive gap in the cost of insuring an 18 year old male and an 18 year old female. However, insurers are not allowed to charge a difference in the premium. I am pretty sure though that they are allowed to charge less for a nurse than for a builder if they can prove that nurses have less accidents than builders.

It is all very fascinating! (And I am quite out of date in my knowledge these days as I don’t work in general although the company I work for does have general.)

Toyota Sufi, C1 or Peugeot 108/107 all the same car very cheap to insure DD is 20 her insurance is now down to £770 on one these cars insured in her name Iia n a second driver and insured at her term time address.

That’s fronting and is illegal.

^ Yes, same here. There seems to be a culture where walking/cycling any further than a mile or two is deemed somehow unreasonable. If he can't afford a car, he can't afford a car, he is not a child.

Cost of insurance for young people is shocking.
We found

Play around adding named drivers to insurance quotes, should decrease price

1litre engine car- smaller engine cheaper insurance

No modifications to car

Newer car- old cars seem to cost more to insure- don't know why

Use comparison websites to compare different types of cars before buying anything- confusingly some small cars are more expensive to insure than others.

Insurance that starts in a month not next few days- for some reason the sooner you want insurance the more expensive it is.

Fully comp can be cheaper or same cost as 3rd party

Play around with the excess- high excess doesn't necessarily equal cheaper insurance so don't get a high excess unnecessarily.

Shop around for quotes.
Be aware prices quoted for young people on comparison websites aren't always honoured by insurers when you try and purchase - some yes looking at you 1st central! Are the insurance equivalent of Ryanair.

Beware of black boxes.
DD had a black box- had two warnings that she ignored! Driving late at night on country lanes- driving sensibly but insurers didn't like the type of road or time of night ( we live rurally)
They cancelled her insurance- now has to declare cancelled insurance for rest of her life and it seriously increases insurance cost- unike points on your licence or an accident it follows you for life- doesn't expire after 5 years.

Realistically having got the "cheapest" insurance possible you just have to suck it up for a few years.

Honda Jazz. Reliable even when old. It has cost us an extra £180 to add DS to ours.

But does he not have the insurance in his own name as the main driver?

For us it was cheapest for us to swap to admiral and get a multi car discount
And the smaller the car the better- our ds had a ford KA then a Peugeot 107- both affordable but Peugeot slightly cheaper. Randomly, we almost got a Hyundai i10 and it was also fairly cheap yet bigger

we have a group 1 car insured with Insure the box. I am the policy holder, DS 21 is the main driver, DD 17 is the second driver.

this is perfectly legal.

its £1100 I renewed it last week

Keep it to about 1L, try different combinations of named drivers as this can bring the price down.

Basically you just need to grit teeth and go with it for a year. It does drop a lot after the first year. We live rurally and my daughter needs hers to get to work and college because of how poor the bus services are here. I get some bursary money towards travel to college for my daughter so I give her this towards petrol. She also has a part time job and uses this to fund her insurance. She hasn’t got much money left after this but she has got her independence.

Be careful with black boxes as if they go over the allowed mileage or time limits you have to pay more money on top.

Are you me? I also have 2 rubbish cars and work in insurance 😂

Apparently look at quotes on a Sunday night can make it cheaper. Don't get a quote to start straight away but in a months time. Have a look at the difference mileage makes - some work out cheaper to quote for lower annual mileage then buy extra miles if you need to exceed. Try different named drivers also.

Great post!

Insurance that starts in a month not next few days- for some reason the sooner you want insurance the more expensive it is.

I believe it's to do with showing you are a prepared type of person who thinks ahead, as do good drivers.

MSE reckon three weeks is the sweet spot.

Of course you can. Some rich people have several cars, or people have a car for leisure and a van for self employed work.

Insurers don't investigate as many claims as people think on here.
Unless someone dies or is seriously injured we don't look much further than to check the driver was on cover and what they were using the car for. So if Young Theo was driving the car for social purposes that's fine. Its not much deeper for 90% of accidents

Also, if a big claim is being investigated, they will interview all the drivers and so you will have to lie outright if you want to cover up fronting. Fancy being cross-examined in your statement in Court?

Money Saving Expert have an extremely comprehensive guide to young people's insurance covering everything mentioned in this thread and some more besides. They also know what they are talking about!

Not sure why the preview won't work but it's well worth a read.

Great, what if someone does die or suffer grave injury? Cars cost a fortune these days and even a 'minor' claim could be tens of thousands.

@Mumofteenandtween interesting information, even though I knew about the ending of cheaper discounts for women.

You may have no sensible immediate answer sadly. If only we started regarding driving as a privilege and acted on the 25% of those with a licence who should not have them, then perhaps insurance premiums could go down a bit.