[Closed] Insurance for young drivers

Make sure you and your wife are on the insurance if possible.

Black boxes are a double edged sword, beware curfews and restrictions on roads, apparently.

Laddo is only learning at the moment, think he's paying £700 with Admiral. Will double when he passes apparently.

Black boxes are a double edged sword, beware curfews and restrictions on roads, apparently.

Yep, I'd heard some stuff which made me a bit wary of them, regardless of the £££ saved.

This is discussed fairly often on here. My experience is that it was cheaper for the young driver to hold the policy rather than add them as a named driver to an existing policy. We did have to re-register the car in her name though, so now the family vehicle is referred to as 'Alice's car' 😁

That approach may not work with 2 young drivers of course.

Yeah, I think having a pair of them snookers most options. What age do premiums start going down? It's possible they're both off to uni next October, so while it would be nice to start them getting some NCD, it might be cheaper to add them to mine and then remove them except for short periods for the following three years.

Had this recently with my son. We bought a car when he was learning just before lockdown so it mostly sat on the drive until he passed last month!

I did the comparison sites and Admiral came up as the cheapest company that I had actually heard of but bloody expensive.

Anyway, long story short, I phoned them up and got a cheaper price and the chap on the phone suggested a multi car policy. I thought he was just up-selling but its worked out loads cheaper.

Each driver keeps their own no claims discount and my son's NCD started whilst he was a learner. We just had to phone up and pay the difference for the rest of the year as the price increased once he passed his test.

I've now got my car, my wife's and my son's cars on the same multi-car policy. The element for my car is less than I was paying before, my wife's is slightly more expensive and my son's is waaaay cheaper than what I was quoted for the same sort of policy by LV who I was with before.

No black box or any curfews either. I guess YMMV depending on location cars etc...

We did have to re-register the car in her name though

That's a new one.... Why?

My eldest is the policy holder for the car she drives, but it's registered in my name.

My son paid £1800 on a 4 year old Fabia 1.2 Monte Carlo in the first year. It's not much cheaper this year but his insurance allows modifications. He has fitted a decent induction kit.

On my old car, quotes were near £4k

This is a 1.2 Fiesta - so hopefully this is keeping the price down a bit...

Cheers for the multicar thing @lankystreakofpee - looks promising as a way of keeping the costs down over the next 12 months if I shift both of our cars into it.

No worries @MartinHutch, I'd recommend Admiral as they were really helpful on the phone and they even gave us a £25 refund per car in April due to Covid as the number of claims had decreased. I can't imagine many insurers doing that!

That’s a new one…. Why?

My eldest is the policy holder for the car she drives, but it’s registered in my name.

That's what we've done for our lad. Talking to his mates, premiums don't seem to drop till age 22 if they go to uni as they don't get much driving experience if they don't take the car

My daughter is with Elephant. 2 years from passing her test the premium has dropped from £1100 to £700 pa on a Seat Mii. no black box.
I can't fault them. She had an accident one week from a year passing her test. The other driver admitted he was at fault but then changed his mind. Expecting the worst but they sorted it with no penalty
I really can't fault them!

What age do premiums start going down

There was a big drop after the first year, at least 30% IIRC. Still expensive compared to my van insurance, but I'm old!

That’s a new one…. Why?

A condition of the policy. Didn't realise until after it started and decided it was easier/cheaper to do that than cancel and find another insurer.

IME (3 sons driving) the 'cheapest way is for them to be insured on their own car with me & the OH added as named drivers.

Comprehensive cover and the highest excess possible.

Don't bother getting them a car until they've passed their test and don't take them out in your own car, that's what Driving Instructors are for (and why their insurance is expensive).

It also means by the time they can afford decent cars, they've plenty of NCD.

Expecting the worst but they sorted it with no penalty

Just wait for renewal.

It's a huge cost, and so nuanced as to risk. For example we're saving £120 by having Ibiza estate instead of hatch, and saving £400 compared to a friend who's son has Fiesta compared to Ibiza estate, yet another friend has an i10 and it's costing more than both the Fiesta and Ibiza.

Clearly L-plate driver is less of a risk than a newbie.

I won't have black box after trialling an app. It penalised us for not being on motorway, for early or late trips, for using a particular roundabout etc...

It’s a huge cost, and so nuanced as to risk. For example we’re saving £120 by having Ibiza estate instead of hatch, and saving £400 compared to a friend who’s son has Fiesta compared to Ibiza estate, yet another friend has an i10 and it’s costing more than both the Fiesta and Ibiza.

That seems a bit odd. The risk is the driver, not the fact that a lot of young drivers are in Fiestas and i10s!

I won’t have black box after trialling an app. It penalised us for not being on motorway, for early or late trips, for using a particular roundabout etc…

Does it tell you in advance that it doesn't want you to go a particular way, or just hits you with a penalty randomly after the fact?

Are black boxes any good, or will they skyrocket the premiums the first time you have to brake hard?

From friends experience, its actually the parents who push the premiums up on the black box! Drive like you're on your test and it's fine, borrowing their car and doing 35 in a 30 because you weren't paying attention gets you an email, a few hundred quid added, and an awkward conversation with your kids over who's going to pay for it 🤣

It also means by the time they can afford decent cars, they’ve plenty of NCD.

Is a bizzare fallacy, pay £2000 now and you'll get £50 off a £350 policy in 5 years time. Survive without a car for now and you'll have £2000 plus interest when you graduate in 4 years.

Also, statistically, there's a 23% chance of them crashing in the first two years. So no NCD anyway!

Don’t bother getting them a car until they’ve passed their test and don’t take them out in your own car, that’s what Driving Instructors are for

Or get them to the test with an additional few dozen hours of driving and you having an insight into thier skills and attitude behind the wheel. We put in 2-3 hours of us driving to every hour with instructor.

Is a bizzare fallacy, pay £2000 now and you’ll get £50 off a £350 policy in 5 years time. Survive without a car for now and you’ll have £2000 plus interest when you graduate in 4 years.

Also, statistically, there’s a 23% chance of them crashing in the first two years. So no NCD anyway!

Completely agree. NCD is hugely unimportant compared to age IME, and the increased risk for younger drivers is also something to be considered.

Is a bizzare fallacy, pay £2000 now and you’ll get £50 off a £350 policy in 5 years time. Survive without a car for now and you’ll have £2000 plus interest when you graduate in 4 years.

Also, statistically, there’s a 23% chance of them crashing in the first two years. So no NCD anyway!

This is a decent way of looking at it.

I think this has cemented my approach. Thanks everyone for your tips.

Having twins certainly leads to some interesting bills landing at the same time. I can't wait for them both to get married in the same year and need help with a house deposit!

Or get them to the test with an additional few dozen hours of driving and you having an insight into thier skills and attitude behind the wheel.

Didn't have much option, none of the instructors around here were working through lockdown, and hers seemed to be an anti-masker afterwards, so was given the heave-ho. She's had two lessons since March so all her bad habits have come directly from me. 🙂

Matt is right, the car makes a huge difference.
School friend had a Jetta saloon. (while the rest of us had corsas and minis). Thought his "huge" car would cost a fortune, but it was cheap as it wasn't a "teenagers car".

Get something sensible, about 8-10 years old, fully comp with the max allowable excess, make it clear they will be paying the excess if they have an at fault crash, see how cautiously that makes them drive.

I'm too old for black boxes, but from what I hear, avoid if at all possible.

I’m too old for black boxes, but from what I hear, avoid if at all possible.

There's good and bad. The first two of Alice's policy had them. The first one, (Co op) had no curfews and I actually got a small refund at the end of the year! The second one was only needed for the first 6 months as an over check the drivers weren't complete bell ends.

My youngest passed about 3 weeks ago and we have gone with Admiral. Admiral were the cheapest for my eldest a couple of years ago as well for his first car.

I opted for non-black box policies (eldest was working late at a restaurant and was potentially going to do some reasonable mileage with his racing).

The policy we took out a few weeks back was for a 17 year old, 1.4l 2002 fiesta, 6000 miles per year, no black box, me as a named driver and it was £1300. That was direct with Admiral, the same search in comparemeerkat was coming in at £2K (with Admiral!).

My son is about 3/4 way through his first year with a Black Box. It's with Morethan and they try to incentivise with monthly "bonus" (vouchers) and % off renewal. These work for a month or 2, but because the bonus vouchers can't be spent in many places (my lad actually gave up trying to claim online as it didn't work!) and % off renewal, obviously depends on renewal price anyway, the motivation from these drops off sharply. His scores were all above 9 for the first few months, but now they're all over the place.
However, I told him as long as they don't go into the negative and incrue penalties, just keep driving how he is.
But - I think the Black box is a GOOD THING. Not strictly for insurance purposes, but for keeping him safe and driving sensibly. I think we all had the experience in our early driving days before these things existed of showing off to mates, racing people etc...? Well, he doesn't do any of that because he knows his driving is being monitored. I can't see anything bad in that at all. Ok, so his score gets penalised for driving later in the eve, but I'd rather that than he had a crash.

And as said, car choice is a big factor on keeping the cost down - his first insurance co (Sterling) would've taken him from learning £700 per year through to full license (no black box) at the same price. But he wanted a better car than the Picanto he learnt in (he had the money saved), bought an Ibiza turbo-injection-fancy-pants-interior and they dropped him and he had to get the black box job for a grand extra.

The risk is the driver, not the fact that a lot of young drivers are in Fiestas and i10s!

Except the car can be
a) indicative of the way in which it is driven, simply through accident statistics. Perhaps Fiesta's are crashed more? Our higher insurance group V70 costs the same as the Ibiza to insure, if we didn't have the new drivers on there.
b) Some cars can cost more in parts to fix or indeed have a worse accident outcome, leading to bigger payouts. Car is very important.

Does it tell you in advance that it doesn’t want you to go a particular way, or just hits you with a penalty randomly after the fact?

I used the Aviva app, as a trial, it fed back to me 'what if?' on our driving. We tried it in two cars for a couple of weeks across three drivers. At the end of that couple of weeks it had:
Heavily penalised me for being on country lanes (I was working in rural Fife, Argyll and Lothians those couple of weeks), mrs_oab the same (she worked at a rural school).
It penalised my son for having breakfast shifts at McDonalds (6:30am drive) and myself for a late return from the airport (my journey finished after 10pm).
It had marked us all down for driving too fast on a couple of locations, one of which is our end of motorway Kier roundabout, where you have to take off quickly as it is safer, one of which was exiting motorway at Stirling where we were braking too hard for the short slip-road into sharp corner and last one was our own A9 junction where arriving onto a dual carriageway at 70 is safer so requires keen acceleration.
It also had marked me down for visiting the office. I think this was because my office is on the university site(?).
We are a family who have not had an accident which was our fault since 2005 (we had one where our car was driven into on a village street in 2010), never had a speeding conviction or any driving complaint/police involvement. I have spent a decade teaching minibus and trailer drivers for outdoor centres, and managing a team of 10+ drivers at a time. I have taught maybe 10 different people to drive, mrs_oab included. We are in no-way perfect, but we are not 'bad' drivers.
It was a shock to therefore have an app tell us our driving habits and routines were 'bad' from an insurance risk point of view, and that we would have been charged more.

indicative of the way in which it is driven, simply through accident statistics. Perhaps Fiesta’s are crashed more?

Oh, I understand that there is a correlation, probably, but it's being read backwards. The contents of the car is the causation, and you're declaring that risk up front - it doesn't get multiplied because it involves a 1 litre hatchback. If every parent stuck their offspring into dowdy middle-aged cars, suddenly the risk associated with estate cars would escalate!

I think a black box is a definite no-no, given that we live in a rural area. Seems like a blunt tool.

But – I think the Black box is a GOOD THING. Not strictly for insurance purposes, but for keeping him safe and driving sensibly. I think we all had the experience in our early driving days before these things existed of showing off to mates, racing people etc…? Well, he doesn’t do any of that because he knows his driving is being monitored. I can’t see anything bad in that at all. Ok, so his score gets penalised for driving later in the eve, but I’d rather that than he had a crash.

Just tell him he's got a black box fitted and pop one of those little cash boxes with a flashing light on top into the footwell. 🙂

I wonder if you could fit one into some kind of stabilising harness, like you get on a go-pro gimbal?

Just gone through it with my boy. He purchased a car (ecoflex corsa) to learn in and we had 2 choices for his own car. TBH I don't think it cost anything more than admin fee to add him to my wifes fiat 500 when he was learning.

1) Insure it on learners policy for about £350pa and when he passes change it to a full policy which they estimated to be between £800 and £1500 depending on how quickly he passed
2) Insure it on combined learner/full policy which covered the full 12mths = £1500

We took option 1 and seeing as we took it out before lockdown and then his lessons dried up its been a real saver. He passed a month or so ago so we had only paid £350 upto that point. They asked for a further £500 for the rest of the year so its cost £850 all in and he gets his 12mths NCD at the end of it. No black box etc.

One thing that made a massive difference to quotes was the question of JOB. My son is full time student but he referees football matches on weekends. If we put it as his occupation his premiums almost doubled. We had to call them up and explain he was a full time student and not a professional referee to get them to reduce the premium. Be careful what you put down because a parent on the policy with something awkward for a living may effect it more than you realise too.

But he wanted a better car than the Picanto he learnt in (he had the money saved), bought an Ibiza turbo-injection-fancy-pants-interior and they dropped him and he had to get the black box job for a grand extra.

So now he's trundling around like a grandma in his fancy-pants car when he could be ragging the arse off a Picanto!!? 🙂

Easily understood. I offered my lad our fiat 500 free of charge so I could get my wife a new car. He refused and spent £3k of his own money on his Corsa which carries much more street cred in the car park. The corsa is a lovely car and sub 1.0l so amazing on fuel. He earned the money reffing so it was his decision to make. Suppose it saved me money too 🙂

So now he’s trundling around like a grandma in his fancy-pants car when he could be ragging the arse off a Picanto!!?

Image is everything 😀

(actually, ragging that Picanto would've likely ended in death the brakes were so bad!)

Is a bizzare fallacy, pay £2000 now and you’ll get £50 off a £350 policy in 5 years time. Survive without a car for now and you’ll have £2000 plus interest when you graduate in 4 years.

Also, statistically, there’s a 23% chance of them crashing in the first two years. So no NCD anyway!

This £350 policy for an early 20 y/o, where and what car?
And "survive without a car"? #towndweller

Initial Civic Type S at 17 was £1100, then dropped to £800 second year.
1.6 Fiesta was £650 for his third year and then a Civic Type R was £750 when he was still 21.

We also avoided Black Boxes as he worked as a KP on an evening and weekends while at college.

There's a lot of talk of the choice car is important for insurance, so our particular situation is my daughter is just starting lessons, do we?

a:stick to just the lessons
b:add to wife's car policy for extra experience
c:buy cheap car for daughter? and if so what car?

(actually, ragging that Picanto would’ve likely ended in death the brakes were so bad!)

He's missing out - there's nothing like the pleasure of getting an old underpowered car up on 3 wheels! My brother used to have a Renault 5, that was a great laugh - so much body roll. He tore both nearside wheels off it in a ditch though, so not a happy ending. 🙂

My daughter takes her test next Friday, but she's beginning to have a melt-down. Things that were easy have suddenly become a problem.

My daughter had a black box. There was an app/ website that showed a report on each journey against (IIRC) four factors. I think it was Time of Day, Road Used, Driving Smoothness and Comparative Speed, reported in a Traffic Light Green, Amber, Red style.. She was working early and late and travelling on the A9. 90+ of the reports were Green. The theory was that too many reds caused some sort of penalty but we never found out as she never crossed that threshold.

One thing that made a massive difference to quotes was the question of JOB

Oh yes, forgot that - got some quotes that didn't ask for job situation online, then when phoned and told them he had a part-time job (whether he'd drive there or not didn't come into it!!) -the premium rocketed. Ridiculous.
So, they have to leave their job 😛

I'm truly down the rabbit hole now.

Latest plan after some truly eye-watering quotes this morning is for her to take over the insurance on the current car, adding me as named driver (with reduced use to avoid accusations of fronting!) . Some telematics would be involved, I'll just have to behave myself or risk a ticking off from her. Anyone got any experience of Carrot insurance and their black boxes?

However, they won't insure my lad in the run-up to his test (he already has a learner policy on the vehicle). But they will add him once he's passed. So plan C involves getting another similar car for either her or him, with a view to selling it on, or more likely, caving and letting him/her keep it.

Her getting reports on his driving via the telematics should be good for sibling relations. 🙂 Then again, she'll find out about mine too.

I bought the old fiesta from someone at work for £500. 2002, 50K on clock (Ghia so nice options!). He has driven it for 6 months on learner insurance (which was a great help when driving lessons stopped).

It failed the MOT yesterday but only on front pads and a wheel bearing, that is going to be £150 to repair but that will be another cheap year motoring.

As I said above insurance is £1300, but if you can get a tidy, small, cheap second hand car then the insurance can get balanced out. Some of my son's friends are getting cars for 3K and then having to pay £1500 on insurance.

Keep the car cheap for a couple of years is my advice and suck up the insurance.

We've got a 1.0 75hp Skoda Fabia for our lad. Enough space for six footers, plus tenor saxophone a, and he much prefers the visibility and driving position to anything he's sat in. Also cheapest on insurance when he looked.

Second place went to a Hyundai i20 1.2.

The saving by going for a basic Skoda over the Hyundai covers his insurance

a:stick to just the lessons

This.

We did it for my 3 sons.

Once they've passed they/you can then work out a way forward, based on the circumstances/cost then, rather than now.

And none on them have lost their NCD's since BTW.

And TBH this is what my folks did with me back in 1982 - just now there's two 'tests' and you need more lessons.

Not sure what other quotes you've got since posting Martin, but I was running a few through the Meercats last night and a 14yr old 1.2 Polo* was coming out at £1080 fully comp for my daughter and no black-box. That was with Admiral.

Daughter as main driver, the wife and me as additional and £500 excess.

I was pinging random car registrations from Autotrader through as well and a Ford Ka or VW Fox came out cheapest.

That's another thing that makes a big difference: the excess. My son's mate was able (so he says) to get insured for a Scirocco putting the excess high. But then his family have the money to pay for the inevitable...

The car we're looking at is only £850 from the garage next door - so stuck a biggish excess on. We figure that any major bump would have it written off anyway, as it would with any cheap car. 🙂

Cheers everyone - we've plumped for adding a little Aygo to our fleet which has got the quote down under a grand (with a box, sadly). Car will get sold again when she heads off to college, hopefully.

She's down as main driver, with me named.

This £350 policy for an early 20 y/o, where and what car?
And “survive without a car”? #towndweller

I lived 2miles from the nearest post box and 2 in the other direction from a street lamp. I had to ride a bike a couple of miles to get to the nearest lane the school minibus could get down. Once got driven to it in Sanderson telehandler (a 726 for the tractor top trumps players) with a snow plough on the front!

#prejudicialstereotypingidiot

Rode bikes everywhere, then got a cg125 for 6th form.

Then got a classic car at 21 which actually cost <<£350 to insure and got me arround for my first jobs (now living in a small town). Then got a secondment which was a 550mile roundtrip every other weekend so got a focus (still with no NCD as classic policies dont transfer it) with cheap insurance (think it was circa £400-£500 as I was doing 25,000 miles, parking on street, business use etc).