Insuring A 17 Year Old

I have noticed that there seems to be a lot of the same posts coming up on forums at the moment regarding insurance for first time drivers and young people. Hopefully this guest post from Gary at Grime & Gears will help some people who are looking at getting insurance or helping there kids get first time insurance.

Probably not the same learner car you will have…

For many the cost of owning a car is buying the car, and then buying petrol for the car. Although most teenagers know they need insurance they don’t realise how much it can cost to get them insured, and a lot of the time they probably don’t care too much because they hope (I won’t say expect!) that their parents will help them out.

Which is nice of you, isn’t it? You may be happy enough for your son or daughter to have their own car and be happy to help them out, but when car insurance for a 17 year old can be in the thousands you may have second thoughts. However, there are things you can do to help cut the cost of their insurance.

Drive a small car

It may sound obvious, but the car they get is a major factor in calculating the cost of the insurance premium. Your son may be happy enough to walk past the BMW dealership knowing such a car is unrealistic for his first one because he fancies a Fiat 500, with an Abarth badge. It’s a small car, it won’t cost much surely?

Your best bet is to opt for a small hatchback with a small engine and a high Euro NCAP safety rating. That way they won’t be able to go fast and if they do crash it will help keep them safe, reducing the chance of a bodily injury claim. Plus, it will cost less in petrol.

Add a second driver

Adding a second, experienced driver to a car insurance policy could reduce the premium. Insurers may think this reduces the risk on the policy. Beware of putting yourself or your partner down as the main driver and your son or daughter as the second one though. If you’re not the main driver and the insurance company finds out it could invalidate the policy.

I’m not sure this is what they mean by ‘second driver’

Have a large excess

An insurance excess is the amount of a claim you will pay yourself. So if you have a £300 excess and an accident causes £500 worth of damage, the insurer only pays £200. Not surprisingly the higher the excess you are willing to pay then the less your insurance premium will be.

Consider a blackbox recorder

A blackbox recorder is a device that is fitted to a car and through GPS and G-force technology records data such as speed, braking habits, cornering speed etc. If the car is driven well, it can bring the cost of the insurance down, and if it is driven badly the cost goes up.

The bad news about the recorder is that it is not an option with many insurers but the Co-operative, who do use it, offer a pay-as-you-drive premium which is recalculated every 90 days based on what the black box records. They claim a young driver can save several hundred pounds by using such a device.

Pass Plus

Finally, you could send your child back to driving school to get a Pass Plus qualification. The Pass Plus is a more advanced course and teaches a person how to drive at night, on a motorway, different weather conditions, etc. The aim is to give you experience at types of driving you might not encounter in normal lessons. Having a Pass Plus qualification shows you are a little more experienced at driving and take safety seriously.