Suddenly surprisingly cheap young driver insurance

[Foss62]

The story starts in the same way as many other PH young driver threads.

Son passed his driving test 3 years ago at the age of 17. His insurance as an additional driver on my wife’s old car went from pennies as a learner to unobtainable. Further searches gave a cheapest quote as something over £2500 - so we went with a pay by the mile and black box Marmalade policy so he could use the car for short periods when home from university.

A year ago, same situation with my 17 year old daughter. You could only have one driver on Marmalade so we resolved her dilemma with very short term insurance that had to be arranged on the starting day of the period required. Expensive but still cheaper than as a standard additional driver.

Then Marmalade announced they were leaving the mileage limited business…

Moving on to last week, as my wife’s insurance was up for renewal we decided on the off chance to try to add both children on a search site, expecting the quote to be somewhere well over £1500. Astonishingly there were a number of options around the £350 mark - despite us having to also declare a (minor) fault claim my son made two years ago.

Does it really only take a year after passing the test for the risk (and price) to drop so significantly?

If anyone is interested, the car is an 18 year old Toyota Auris owned from new and I am also on my wife’s policy.

[Rough101]

I’d check that, mine were still paying about £750 with one years no claims

[Foss62]

Rough101 said:

I d check that, mine were still paying about £750 with one years no claims

All seems OK and a policy selected and bought now.

[brillomaster]

Am I right in thinking they've gone from having their own policies in their name, to being named drivers on your wife's policy? If so that'll be a lot of the reason for the decrease.

Which makes sense if they only use a car occasionally. Personally I don't think NCB is really that important compared to driver age.

[LuS1fer]

There is a big drop after the first year. Both my kids paid through the nose, the first year but it halved the second year. Probably to do with black boxes and monitoring their driving.

Not just youngsters though. My partner is 49 and drives a Panda. She had no NCB when she returned to driving and the insurance prices were daft. I ended up insuring the car in my name with her as registered keeper and main driver and it was about half the premium. The downside is she never earns NCB in her own right and, to be honest, the difference between the original premium and every year since NCB has accumulated on the policy, is only ever a few quid.

[eliot]

LuS1fer said:

There is a big drop after the first year. Both my kids paid through the nose, the first year but it halved the second year. Probably to do with black boxes and monitoring their driving..

My lad’s non black box policy went from £2300 to £800 on the second year on a 2007 1.2 Polo.

[Foss62]

brillomaster said:

Am I right in thinking they've gone from having their own policies in their name, to being named drivers on your wife's policy? If so that'll be a lot of the reason for the decrease.

Which makes sense if they only use a car occasionally. Personally I don't think NCB is really that important compared to driver age.

They did have their own policies (one paid per hundred miles, other paid by the day), but only because we exhausted all the possibilities regarding named driver policies.
It’s the comparison between named driver quotes a year ago (minimum was about £2600 if I recall correctly) and named driver quotes now (c. £350) that I am making.
I’m wondering if a year’s experience brings a load more insurers into the market - so it suddenly becomes competitive?

[alscar]

“Generally “ it’s about getting your kids to that magic one year driving experience with ( if their own policy in particular ) that first years NCB.
The rest is then down to the actuarial computer assisted rating model.
As learners all my 3 had their own policies which then went up substantially as expected when they passed their tests but on threat of them having to pay for that themselves rather than Bank of M&D were told get it to one year clean which with Admiral they did even though driving solo had been a lot less than one year.

[Road2Ruin]

eliot said:

My lad s non black box policy went from £2300 to £800 on the second year on a 2007 1.2 Polo.

Christ on a bike. My youngest, has a 2012 1.2 polo and in her first year is paying £695. This is a black box policy, mind you.

[MickyveloceClassic]

You have to think completely outside the box.

My eldest bought a Cayman 2.7 (2007) when he was 19. His first year with no no-claims was around £1100.

It’s in his name, as part of a multi-car policy.

At 21, he’s on his second Cayman (981 GTS) now, and pays around £700 .

He sold the 987 to a similarly aged chap, who was also surprised how cheap the car was to insure.

We do live in rural North Yorkshire, but his friends who have gone down the traditional warm / hot hatch route pay much more.

The algorithms at work will determine that plenty of very young drivers have crashed or claimed on Polos, whereas virtually none have claimed against a Cayman.

911s and M-cars are still throwing up huge numbers for him when last he checked, so worth an hour or so on a comparison site to see what’s available.

[POIDH]

So many variables here for insurance. Car type (and how many youngsters crash them), location relative to accident and theft numbers, who is on that policy, etc etc.

FWIW, son 1 has 2019 1.0 hybrid swift and it's £690. His younger brother has Civic 1.8 and it's £495...both same address, same drivers, everything apart from car model. Thier older brother had a Transit camper as first car - £700 a year after he passed, but looked at getting a car and it was minimum of £300 more...

[TwigtheWonderkid]

MickyveloceClassic said:

The algorithms at work will determine that plenty of very young drivers have crashed or claimed on Polos, whereas virtually none have claimed against a Cayman.

That's not the way it works. If it were, Bugatti Veyrons would be virtually free for teenagers to insure, given that I suspect no teenager has ever crashed a Veyron. There must be other factors at work.