17 year old car insurance

[KazzaKazza]

Hi
Just after any advice on newly passed 17 year old teenage driver. As his parent I have a 1.3 Yaris, so not a big or powerful car!
I tried to get him on my own car insurance but my current insurer doesn't insure anyone under 21.
I tried Marmalade and they wouldn't insure him (didn't say why).
Using Confused / U-switch is giving options of about £3500, (with a black box - which as I will share the car, I'm not so keen on, but maybe will have to accept it), which seems expensive but I'm new to this teenage driver thing!

Any idea of the best way to insure him?

Many thanks

Joining the thread as I will be in a similar position soon

Yep it's a flipping nightmare when they first pass but thank heavens it will get cheaper year on year.
Mine are a few years older now but for that age check out Adrian Flux. They specialise in young drivers.

And don't forget to put yourself on a named driver too and a black box is a must.
I know some kids do pay £3k etc but it's an awful lot.

Good luck
X

You could try going through Moneysavingexpert.com.

Insuring a teenage driver is eye wateringly expensive. Couldn't get anyone to insure my DD at 17 to drive a 1.9, even as a named driver. Apparently a 1.9 Vaukhall astra is a "performance vehicle" ! We ended up buying a small Clio, 1.0L with DD as the main driver so she could build her no claims. And we were still paying well over £2k 10 years ago.
You will be very lucky not to have to install a black box.

Good luck!

Sadly 3.5k for a 17 year old is not unusual at all these days.

The plus side of him having his own policy though will be that he accumulates NCD which he won’t if he’s just a named driver on your policy. Expensive now but that will massively help him out going forwards.

Just go on to a comparison site. Quidco give cashback too

I think there is some way companies can do the black box type thing for the young person only and not the adult. It tracks their phone somehow.
Maybe someone else can explain better:)

To check - are you saying he should take out his own insurance for just himself on my car and I keep mine? So we have two separate policies on the same car?

Sorry - if I’m misunderstanding. It’s an absolute minefield! Im confused.com!

Oh - that would be good!

Im not a crazy driver but just feels mad to have a black box at my age!! 🤣

I wish I could afford to buy him a little car - so we don’t have to share!

The lack box is connected to their phone so it knows if they are in the car, then if they are in the car as a passenger they have to log that on the app. My DD’s insurance is with admiral.

Just get him to do loads of quotes on a comparison site like MoneySupermarket and figure out what is the best value?

Thats what I did when I was 18.

£3.5k seems reasonably cheap.

Edit to add: it was cheaper for me to buy my own £1250 1.0L Citreon and insure than insure my parents Focus.

Thank you - I will get him to do that.

Interesting it was cheaper to get your own car. I downgraded to a less powerful but newer car thinking it would be better for him!

Hastings Black Box insurance was recommended to me as the black box is for the young driver not anyone else (done by phone app). Didn't get that in the end as an alternative turned up much to my surprise when I looked on confused.com

We got DS insured on a 1.2 Agila, for about £2,000 when he was 17 and passed his test, without a black box. That was with both parents as named drivers. It halved the second year.

I had a similar problem when mine passed his test, he didn't really need it that often, so we just used Veygo as and when he did need it.

My DS 17 has just passed his test and we were £3500 for his Focus - that's him as the named driver and without a black box. I just done it through money supermarket.

I’ve seen advice on other threads that if you wait a few weeks after they’ve passed their test, it will be quite a bit cheaper.

You can't have two insurance policies on the same car @KazzaKazza, dual insurance with you as main driver and son as main driver on another is likely to invalidate both policies.

It is often cheaper to insure a young driver on their own car with parents as named drivers because the young driver will be deemed as getting more driving experience as the main driver and possibly be a more responsible driver when it is their own car.

While putting a young person as a named driver on a relatively small car will most likely include a fronting surcharge - lots of people try insuring vehicles with older drivers as main drivers even though it will be the young driver's main car - as well as the additional risk of less experience being gained.

If you can afford to get a cheap car for him, with cheaper insurance it will probably be cheaper overall.

We used Tesco with black box and DH as a named driver on a Citroën C3 was £850 but a few years ago - but would but think it would be over £3,000 now. It does get better - he's 24 now and its down to £375.

Prime example of fronting @KazzaKazza

When my eldest passed she was off to uni soon so we would just take out pockets of insurance. So a month in summer 2 weeks at Xmas etc. I think total cost was about £800 for whole year (was 6 years ago though) but she probably only drove 3-4 months in total. Then at 21 she took out her own insurance which was around a grand

Sorry, I meant main driver, not named driver

My dd has insurance through My Policy, which worked out cheapest. Apparently they’re ‘good’ on the black box front. As in not too stringent.

It was cheaper for my 17 year old to buy his own car and insure it than it would have been to go on my insurance.
Paid 1.5k for a Renault Clio with 55k miles and 1.2k for insurance with a black box. You have to chose the car carefully to keep the insurance down.

He needs his own car and his own insurance policy so he can start to build his no claims. Hastings Black Box is good and not too sensitive, it’s all done via their app and you pair it to a stick-on box on the dashboard with Bluetooth.

An initial option is to use a company like Veygo. It depends on how often he's going to drive the car. They are part of Admiral and you just insure them temporarily each time they are going to be using the car - either for a couple of hours or a couple of months, or whatever. We have used this a lot, e.g. if the new driver was going off to uni so would only be around some of the time, or while we waited for a parent's current insurance to run out. It's actually not usually that much - we'd pay £8-£10 for a couple of hours or something like £30 odd for a couple of weeks. And it can tide you over until you find an annual alternative. My eldest at uni insured himself ad hoc like this for about 18 months in total, whereas my middle lad who was at home went on DHs insurance as a named driver (about £1k for a 1.4 polo, 4 years ago). It's worth thinking about while you wait for your current insurance to finish, if you're happy to switch next year to a company that will insure you both.