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!

Obviously I'm just wondering hypothetically but a receipt is what a person who sells something gives, in what way would the giver of a gift do a receipt?

I bought my car privately, I don't have any way to prove it's mine, I'd never thought about that before

I suppose the interesting thing with compulsory insurance like car insurance is companies have huge pools of data to analyse, and this data can throw up some interesting and surprising results. Such as certain colours of car have less claims/ lower value claims (nothing to do with visibility of course, as colours like yellow and orange are probably the riskiest, so it's pointing to something about the characteristics of the people who are choosing these cars), married people being a better risk than single people, people with a garage are riskier than those with drives. And then the protected characteristic data from ethnicities or gender they aren't allowed to use.

Email address is an odd one but the data doesn't lie- people with hotmail or live accounts are statistically a worse risk than people who use gmail, work addresses etc. It's a fact this is the case but it's only really speculation as to why. It could be an indicator of class, age, resistance to technology that is having some effect. I suspect it is possibly the provider of choice for those involved in fraud but that's only my own guess, and this feeling partly comes from seeing the investigation years ago into a crash for cash ring who had 37 different policies all registered to the same postal address each with a different hotmail account. It is definitely a thing though! https://parkinsurance.co.uk/email-address-can-drive-insurance-costs/#:~:text=According%20to%20Admiral%2C%20data%20analysis,had%20a%20different%20email%20address.

Exactly. So why did you say in an earlier post:

There isn’t really a mechanism to transfer ownership anyway unless she’s actually going to pay you for it and you write her a receipt.

?

Yes you do. You have any emails or texts between you and the seller.

You have the proof of the money going to your account and leaving yours.

You have your own statement that you bought it, and theirs if they were available to give it.

But this would only ever matter if someone for some reason decided to challenge the fact that you owned the car. For most day to day purposes the fact that you are the registered keeper on the V5 is all that matters.

Let’s say you died and there was a dispute over whether the car was part of your estate. It would be likely presumed that you bought it unless some third party was saying it belonged to them.

People do not seem to understand that cars are very expensive to run. Insurance is only the start of it. Maintenance, repairs, petrol, all adds up.

Just wait.

It does depend what you are prepared to do. I've had 'career type jobs' for three decades including some very early starts and late finishes. In my current job, I walk a mile to the bus, forty five minutes on the bus, then walk a mile the other end. No car. No car insurance. No parking worries. Appreciate you can't do this if there's only two buses a day (or no buses at all). But, an hourly bus, yes, you can do this, thousands of people do.

Get his licence first
then reassess
at least having a licence will open up more potential work for him

Just make him wait.

When I was a teenager I shared a car with my mum and brother. My mum was the main driver as it was her car and she drove it most. Me and my brother were named drivers.

Those thousands of people must be better at life than me and my family, there is no way in the world that I could have kept my job with children at nursery and primary school using public transport, it simply wouldn't have been possible and neither could my children have the good jobs they have now

Of course you don't have to believe me but thats the reality for thousands in my area, the withdrawal of rural bus services is a massive issue

Who?

I know this is unusual for posters on here but I paid for my car in cash and sold my old car for cash, I didn't have any electronic communication in either case as my brother dabbles in buying and selling cars and offered to sort both for me so other than that everyone who knows me knows it's my car it would be impossible to prove, it's an interesting debate though

OP it's a nightmare! I have just managed to get insurance for my newly passsed-test 17 year old son with Marmalade but it cost £2000!!! And it's limited mileage, so basically he had 1000 miles for that and once that's used up he has to purchase more. I've told him to limit his driving as if he uses it up he will have to pay more himself as I can't afford to fork out anymore. The next cheapest option after that was coming out at £3000 with Axa with unlimited mileage but I just couldn't justify the cost.

I don't completely disagree with you. I grew up in a rural area and, today, the bus service has been decimated. So I understand what you're saying.

I suppose I am trying to make a bigger point.

It's far too easy for politicians to cut funding for public transport, whether its the bus or train, partly because of the 'power' that car drivers have as a group.

Cut a bus service, and a politician will still get elected. But, my word, try to enforce a 20mph speed restriction, and all hell is let loose!

So, yes, rural communities have had a terrible deal. But we all have a responsibility to get of our cars and cure our 'car addition' if we can.

But I accept that not everyone can do this. It's a circular argument though.

Better public transport benefits the whole community, and it would be great for car users to support its funding, its use and its improvement.

No public transport means that poorer people, disabled people, people with young kids etc. don't even get the chance for better careers.

No, there would be no documentary evidence . That does not mean that it would be impossible to prove. It means that it would be more difficult to prove. Witness evidence is evidence.

We have 2 cars. My car is the bigger xtrail family car so DS won’t be driving that. DH has a juke as ‘his’ car although we swop sometimes depending on big boot needs. DH wfh most of the time only going to the office once a week. He does use his car lots evening and weekends.
DS has just got his provisional licence so we are looking into lessons etc.
our plan is to just add DS to DHs car as a named driver. He would probably only use it to drive to school some days when DH is wfh and as he doesn’t have any sort of social lift would probably then only do the odd trip to the supermarket.
I think this is acceptable and within the rules - it will still be DH car and has been his car for 5+ years already, he would use it as much as he does now, just it would be available for DS to use when not being used. Surely if DS just drives it to school they wouldn’t class him as the main driver.

@BrieAndChilli if you're asking because of my post previously, your son driving to school doesn't automatically mean he's the main driver. It's more if it seems the named driver is using it five days a week for a commute that they couldn't do without a car, thus they've got the car for a big proportion of the week and reduces the likelihood that the other person is the main driver, ie if they only have access evenings and weekends at most.

When ds1 passed his test we added him as a named driver on my insurance. He drove to school every day (9 miles each way). I used the car evenings, weekends, holidays etc and did all the long distance drives. It was my car, its just that because I wfh it happened to be available for him.

I definitely put a lot more miles on it than he did. Then he went to university and I kept my car home and started to teach ds2.

Just because they have access to a car for trips to work it doesn't mean they are the nail driver.

Normally you write out a receipt when buying/selling privately. ALWAYS insist on a receipt. The AA website has a great template which I always use.

The gifting piece becomes an issue when people fall out. Let’s say I buy a car then gift it to you down the line and you register it in your name. We then fall out and I demand the car back, the only real documentary evidence is the receipt for it in my name. I’d say that the V5C is only in your name as you were the one responsible for taxing/admin of it whilst on loan to you. A real messy situation.

Him using it every day would have given the insurance company reason to claim he was the main user. I bet he also used it evenings and weekends when he needed to.

if he had been in an accident heading to school I think you’d have found out the hard way

This attitude about the brand of car he's not happy been seen in, is the main problem here.

Dacia, Kia, black box. Or he sucks up not driving.

Problem solved.

True, but the cars mentioned are still expensive to insure. A friend's DS19 has just passed and bought a Kia Picanto, it cost £3,000 to insure.

I posted again and said we spent hours last night trying every possible combination. Nothing lower than £3800ish.

I'm another whose parents would never have dreamed of buying me a car and paying the kind of insurance figures being talked about here. And OP, I know you said just now that you've tried different makes and models but you did make a comment about a car he would be seen dead in - that would rile me right up!

I understand the people who live rurally, the other reasons people might genuinely need a car per family member but when I look at my friends and colleagues loads of them absolutely do not fall into that category but still buy their teens a car the minute they pass, or sometimes beforehand. It seems mad to me but it doesn't keep me awake at night, isn't my business and I'm not about to weigh in on their decisions. On an internet forum though I'll happily say that I think in general we could do with a move away from this attitude that kids need a car straight away, or indeed that every person in every family needs a car.

More generally perhaps there will be a shift in the law that goes someway to sorting the insurance pricing for teens - in Australia there are minimum learning hours requirements, restrictions on passengers when drivers are below a certain age, zero blood alcohol level requirements for P plate drivers and varying restrictions by state around max speeds and engine size. They might help here I suppose?

Worth getting a quote from your insurer before you decide for sure.

My £300 a year to insure car would have cost me £6,600 to add DD as a named driver. Suffice it to say she got her own!