Insurance quotes, son doesn't turn 17 for another week or so

[OneTwo]

My son is just beginning his motoring life, I collected his car on a 5 day driveaway policy and put it in the garage.

He turns 17 in a couple of weeks. The usual comparison sites lock up at the DoB field, as he isn't yet 17 so they won't proceed any further (even though I've declared the policy start date as his 17th birthday! )

Has anybody arranged cover to start at 0001 on your child's 17th birthday without the frustration of company websites just 'stopping' at the DoB field?

Trying to find a telephone number for me to talk to a human is a quest, certainly not as simple as it should be anyway...

[Durzel]

Would it kill him to wait a week before driving it?

It's not ideal but it sounds like you've run into a practical limitation of online comparison sites. Short of ringing them up individually and having to explain all of this each time, it seems like it would make more sense to just wait until his birthday and then get a quote for a week or so out? (to reduce the price).

[JQ]

OneTwo said:

My son is just beginning his motoring life, I collected his car on a 5 day driveaway policy and put it in the garage.

He turns 17 in a couple of weeks. The usual comparison sites lock up at the DoB field, as he isn't yet 17 so they won't proceed any further (even though I've declared the policy start date as his 17th birthday! )

Has anybody arranged cover to start at 0001 on your child's 17th birthday without the frustration of company websites just 'stopping' at the DoB field?

Trying to find a telephone number for me to talk to a human is a quest, certainly not as simple as it should be anyway...

Surely the solution is to put his birthday back a month, do the comparison quote, get the cheapest, then contact them them and deal direct with quote in hand. I've never had an issue finding a telephone number (Google normally throws something up), but if you really can't, then their online chat facility seems to work fine for me.

One thing to be wary of - the quotes you get now will not be reflective of the future cost of his insurance, as it will jump up once he passes his test and is permitted to drive unsupervised. I used the comparison sites to get quotes on the assumption my son had a full licence and worked back from there. No point paying a £500 premium on a provisional which jumps to £4,000 once qualified, if another insurer will offer a £600 premium on provisional which only jumps to £2,000 once qualified. The alternative would be to get a new policy once passed and forego any NCD accrued.

[OneTwo]

I do get it, but having the opportunity to drive 'on the big day' has been a part of the build up.

The car is his main birthday present, he loves driving (he races karts at UK national standard) and I thought that giving my hard earned cash to fatcat insurance companies would be the easiest part of the whole 'getting on the road' experience. Seems not.

So I'll just tell him that he can look at the car for a week or so, but the sthead programmer on the comparison site has done a poor job so he can't drive it yet. That'll go down really well I'm sure

[OneTwo]

I also tried the 1 month older than he is approach on the comparison websites and have done quotes for what the car will cost to insure after he passes his test using modified information. I'm happy with all that.

The insurance companies that gave good quotes are elusive with their direct dial numbers for quote follow up calls. The ones that do have a number use the same or similar software as the comparison sites, so the minute I give his true DoB the do not proceed screen pops up again...

[paul_c123]

You could sort the insurance out at 8:30am on the big day. He'll still be in bed, probably leaning on his arm in preparation for "the stranger".

[Durzel]

If it's a symbolic thing then one option might be to try and get "day insurance" and then sort the actual policy to run in a weeks time or something?

https://www.tempcover.com/temporary-car-insurance/... - first thing I found.

For what it's worth - I recently took out a policy on a Fiat 500 that I bought for my niece, and it wasn't any cheaper a week out, in fact it was more expensive for some reason. This was just with me on the policy though (she hasn't got a provisional yet).

[VSKeith]

OneTwo said:

I do get it, but having the opportunity to drive 'on the big day' has been a part of the build up.

The car is his main birthday present, he loves driving (he races karts at UK national standard) and I thought that giving my hard earned cash to fatcat insurance companies would be the easiest part of the whole 'getting on the road' experience. Seems not.

So I'll just tell him that he can look at the car for a week or so, but the sthead programmer on the comparison site has done a poor job so he can't drive it yet. That'll go down really well I'm sure

I can assure you it's nothing to do with the developers of the site, they will code whatever they're told to (most of the time)

[PistonBroker]

Have you tried Learner Driver insurance?

I'd expect the learner driver outfits are set up for putting cover in place in advance of his 17th. I arranged Little Miss T's here, but I gather Collingwood are a good go-to for that cover.

[Super Sonic]

As an aside, if the car isn't currently insured, you may want to sorn it while it's in the garage.

[E-bmw]

OneTwo said:

I do get it, but having the opportunity to drive 'on the big day' has been a part of the build up.

So just get up at 07:00 & go online then do it then, you will have it done before he has had his wheaties, what could be easier.

[Durzel]

He'll pay through the nose trying to arrange a years insurance to start that day. They're always loaded because the implication is that you're time pressured or forgetful.

[JQ]

OneTwo said:

I also tried the 1 month older than he is approach on the comparison websites and have done quotes for what the car will cost to insure after he passes his test using modified information. I'm happy with all that.

The insurance companies that gave good quotes are elusive with their direct dial numbers for quote follow up calls. The ones that do have a number use the same or similar software as the comparison sites, so the minute I give his true DoB the do not proceed screen pops up again...

We didn't have an issue doing the above and several of his mates were driving their own cars on the morning of their birthday, so clearly not a common issue. I think we ended up using Hastings.

As others have said, I definitely wouldn't be searching for quotes on his birthday to start that day, you'll get absolutely rinsed.

[PistonBroker]

Durzel said:

He'll pay through the nose trying to arrange a years insurance to start that day. They're always loaded because the implication is that you're time pressured or forgetful.

Yep.

Which is another flaw of these systems - passing your test and wanting cover to start right away is very different to forgetting to renew until the last minute or putting it off.

Fortunately my daugher was happy to wait after she'd passed her test. Buying it on the day she passed, but with a start date a fortnight later, resulted in her first year costing £1400 rather than £1900.

[Foss62]

Why don’t you just insure it yourself and then add your son as a named (learner) driver. You could do this on the day of his birthday, but I don’t think you’ll have any problem doing this in advance - I took both my kids out on their birthdays’ in my wife’s car and don’t remember any drama around the insurance.

As you will presumably be accompanying your son all the time he is driving, this is not ‘fronting’ and you can cancel the policy as soon as he passes.

As others have said, insuring a learner is cheap and easy, but once they pass their tests you are in for a world of astonishing pain and may well want to search around again.

[boyse7en]

You can get specialist "learner" insurance (I used Adrian Flux, other providers are available) to get short-term cover while he learns. Then once he passes his test you are free to get the best quote from whichever provider you chose, rather than being "stuck" with the same insurer.
I got cover for my daughter for £120 for 3 months from her 17th birthday ahead of time without a problem, then got a "normal" policy from Admiral once she passed her test.

Note: if you can get him to wait a week after passing his test before he is insured you can save a bundle – for my daughter it was £450 cheaper by waiting those seven days