After not visiting The Back Room for a couple of years or more, it's time for a new car, and I therefore seek your combined advice on the thorny topic of adding our son to our policy...
Said son is 17 (not 18 till July), still learning, takes his first test on 1 March. Current car is large Saab, uninsurable for him but needs to be replaced by something smaller anyway. We haven't yet decided what to replace it with, but a low insurance group is a major factor.
So here's the questions:
1. Will the value of the car we buy make much difference to the cost of adding son? I suspect not a lot, because we're insuring against what he might do to the rest of you out there ...
2. Will passing his test and doing Pass Plus make much difference to the cost of adding son? If it will, it's worth waiting to see how he gets without additional practice. If it won't, we might as well bite the bullet and do it sooner rather than later.
3. At the mo we just have me and Mr SS as named drivers. On a smaller car, might it be worth going for an Any Driver policy, and then naming son? I realise this might push premium up and will certainly attract a big excess for son, but might this be cheaper than 3 named drivers, one of them being son?
4. Any other suggestions for getting young driver's costs down? Had a quick look through previous posts but didn't spot anything much, apologies if I missed something! Did also start to have a theoretical conversation with the insurer, but didn't find them that helpful once I stopped asking for insurance on a particular car!
Son really is likely to be just an occasional driver: he's not a petrol head and is mostly learning now because I suggested it was the best time of his life to do so: hardly any commitments, few financial worries, etc. Plus he'll hopefully be off to Uni in October and I don't anticipate him running a car then! But I expect to be 'off the road' for a few months after Easter and having another driver in the family could be useful.
Looking forward to insightful comments from Mark et al ...
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1) Not likely.
2) It varies by insurer, but usually yes. However, even if it does make a difference, it may not be much. You'll probably just have to ask. Don't forget you have a number of questions; how much with, how much without, if done without will it reduce when with.
3) Any Driver, even if you can get it wich isn't likely, isn't really Any Driver. What it really means is Any Driver who is no more risk than you plus any higher risk drivers you've told us about. And as for cheaper - then no. It will be rated for the likely drivers in the household and then plus a bit. You're better off with named drivers.
4) Depends on the money. The best thing to do is going and buy him the shabbiest pile of low insurance group you can find and insure it in his name. Not cheap now, but it will start him on NCD, it will give him a low value car to use at a time when he's likely to knock it about quite a bit, and relieve you from a pile of worries.
Having done that, I then wouldn't add him to my policy until 12 months licence and pass plus. Even if I didn't wait, if he actually has his own car insured, adding him to yours will be cheaper because there will be no question in the mind of the insurer that he may be a significant user.
And from now 'till October is quite a long time.
This would also avoid you buying a car which was not ideal because it did suit the son.
No doubt you'll have a bunch of peple in here soon explaining how they wouldn't let their son out in anything worth less than £1m or more than 3 days old because they're not safe etc. etc.
Personally I'd go and buy him something for about £300 which was clean, safe and dry. I have recently bought a Cavalier for that amount and could have bought a Polo - so they are around.
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Yup, when I was getting rid of my little old renault, mums and dads were more interested in the insurance group than condition or ncap ratings. Best way to build up NCB is a nice cheap, low group car on TPF&T or TPO if it has to be parked on the street.
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If you are buying another car for your son to drive, normal rules of old low grouped runabout apply.
Otherwise, one of the key factors is how many cars are in your family. Obviously if there is one car between two parents and a kid, it is likely the kid will be an occasional driver. Get a reasonably grouped car (Mondeo size or below) and you won't have a problem. Two+ cars and then from the insurance companies view point he must be a regular or main driver on one of them.
I know having a young driver on the policy is a major insurance factor, but remember your insurance policy is made up of lots of different risk factors, such a mileage area you live in etc, etc. When I worked in motor insurance, I found that clients tended to be like blinkered horses, majoring on one area of risk, as opposed to chipping away at a number of areas (can I garage car, how many miles do I really do) or just looking at the bottom line price when getting insurance. i.e. Company X rates my Mondeo as a group 10 but Company Y rates it as group 9, but Company Y is more expensive.
As an additional bit of advice, I would say take the opportunity with this major change to review your whole motor insurance situation and hunt around like mad. Top tips: Tesco, Virgin, E-Sure, NU Direct and CIS.
Finally, it used to really get on my nerves the amount of parents who had two expensive cars in the family, who would ring up and say that they had just bought another car for themselves for shopping, train station etc, oh and remarkably little Johnny needs to be added, but he will not be the main user....err right. Don't do this as it does not work and justs makes you lose credibility when negotiating.
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thanks, people, all very helpful answers. Actually, he's probably got more disposable income than we have so trying to persuade him to buy his own car might be the answer ... but I doubt I'll be able to! He's happy to walk, bus or scrounge lifts from us or his friend's parents, and I think he realises if he had his own wheels I'd want to take advantage of this.
We've only got the one car beween us, and that's not usually a problem: but the usefulness of having 2 cars between 3 is something we hadn't considered. Problem is I think we'd still have to have him as a named driver on our policy, because, although we can fit two cars on our driveway, I haven't worked out a way of getting the first one parked off the drive without moving the second one parked into the road. Maybe a smaller car will do the trick.
(After several attempted break-ins, two slashed tyres and finally a baseball bat through the windscreen we don't ever park on the road any more. I'm waiting for the 6ft high wrought iron gates to be nicked but it hasn't happened yet.)
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>>Finally, it used to really get on my nerves the amount of ...
Oh, Retro is *SOOO* right. And the scandalised reaction to the incredible injustice of discovering the insurer's intention to rate it on the kid was only equalled by my determination to use admin charges for what they were really intended for - revenge !
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>>Finally, it used to really get on my nerves the amount of ... Oh, Retro is *SOOO* right. And the scandalised reaction to the incredible injustice of discovering the insurer's intention to rate it on the kid was only equalled by my determination to use admin charges for what they were really intended for - revenge !
I can appreciate your reactions. But I do wonder - leaving my son out of it for now - who the main driver of our car is. The insurance is in my name, and I'm down as the main driver. Which I always used to be, because whenever we were in the car together I would always drive while Sir got on with reading his book. Now I let him drive more and more, not sure if it's old age, changing habits after I was ill last year, or the fact that the heated seat doesn't work on the driver's side... Short of logging who does which journey, don't know how I'd find out. We seem to be equally accident prone so it probably doesn't matter.
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Between you and your husband, that may be a fair point and doesn't matter all that much.
Betweeen you and your son, firstly it matters and secondly it is usually easy for you to know if it is your car or your son's and who the main driver is.
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If in doubt, I would put your son as the main driver.
When I got involved with this kind of question when working in insurance, I always asked the client to think how they would deal with the worst case scenario of their son/daughter running down a bus queue. Millions might be at stake and the insurer would check over the info they supplied with a fine toothcomb. In such a situation, having the accident would be bad enough, would you really want the worry of whether your insurer was going to payout and worse a possible fraud case?
The Selby train crash and the nth degree that drivers life was gone into proves my point above.
Finally, I am with Mark on this one. Generally you will know who is the main driver.....it is just paying the extra that is the unpalatable bit!
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I’ve been through this 3 times ( 3 Children ) I purchased low group cars for them VW 1L Polo Coupes and the like and they insured the car in there own names with me as a named driver. The Pass Plus paid dividends with discounts worth twice what the course cost and an up front first years NCD. (Norwich Union ) (Direct Line was best deal when my Daughter passes her test.) Rather that finding a fix consider the longer term solution 1 to 2 years because it does not get all that much cheaper to get stand alone insurance until they are well over 20.
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