The Lemon Fool

My son is about to start driving. We have acquired my mother’s car now she is no longer fit to drive. Will it be better / cheaper to insure it in my name, with my son as an additional driver ? Or the other way around ?
TIA
John

Not sure if this answers your question but with one of my boys I found it best to lend my name to "marmelade" insurance. This allowed him to drive for a month in my car. During this time (he drove me down to Cornwall and back) he gained so very much confidence that everything else became easy after that.

It was not especially expensive. I think that by heavily involving the parent they find the risk (in terms of payouts) is substantially reduced.

Cant recommend it highly enough (not affiliated obviously).

Chris

While they are learning, it is cheap and easy to add them to your own insurance, because they only ever drive under supervision. Once they pass their test, they become expensive!
Marmalade, with a black box, was the best option for us when she got to that stage.

The downside of the black box is that if a parent drives the car, then they too have to stick absolutely to speed limits, not brake harshly etc!

Midsmartin wrote:The downside of the black box is that if a parent drives the car, then they too have to stick absolutely to speed limits, not brake harshly etc!

As if...

Midsmartin wrote:...they too have to stick absolutely to speed limits, not brake harshly etc!

The UK needs an equivalent for politicians...

Midsmartin wrote:The downside of the black box is that if a parent drives the car, then they too have to stick absolutely to speed limits, not brake harshly etc!

Not just the parents...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... costs.html

For what its worth as my kids learned to drive 7 years ago, I found the cheapest way was a piggy back policy like this https://www.aviva.co.uk/insurance/motor/learner/, it is added to your existing policy as is very flexible. I bought it by the month until test time. It is (or was) surprisingly cheap even on my BMW.
Once they pass, buying the right car is key. Too old the policy goes up, same with the popular cars like Fiesta's etc. My kids drove a deeply uncool Citroen Nemo van with seats which was less than 1k to insure at 17 years old and no black box to contend with. We did have a box for one year as at that time boys were penalised, but that is no longer the case. If u do go down the black box route read the small print carefully as each has its own way of measuring performance and some have odd time restrictions. One advantage of the box is that the new driver is aware that he/she is being monitored and it seems to make a big difference.

An alternative view:

When learning to drive, the insurance policy for 17 year olds to be the lead driver is relatively cheap (c£400 in my son's case). However, once they have passed the quotes more than double, as the risks of an accident clearly massively increase once they are on their own and without supervision.

Given that it is expected to take a year (more or less) for my son to learn, we opted for a policy in his own name (with me as a named driver) on the basis that this would earn him a year's no claims when it comes to getting the second year's policy either as a learner or a newly qualified driver. He wouldn't qualify for a no claims bonus as a named driver on anothers' policy but AIUI will get a no claims bonus as a learner on his own policy.

jtr63 wrote:My son is about to start driving. We have acquired my mother’s car now she is no longer fit to drive. Will it be better / cheaper to insure it in my name, with my son as an additional driver ? Or the other way around ?
TIA
John

TBH I think the only definitive way to find out is to try multiple options/variations in a price comparison website to get a feel for pricing.

one consideration may be that as soon as your son has his own policy in his own name, he will start to acrue NCD history. The longer you/he waits to begin that process, the later in life he will get to the nirvana of max NCD.

Of course some policies may permit years on another's policy to be taken into account, but that is an intangible really.

didds

wanderer wrote:...we opted for a policy in his own name (with me as a named driver)...

After my eldest had passed his test he found he could reduce his premium by making me a named driver. He did this for a few years but it seemed to follow a law of diminishing returns. One renewal year it would have pushed his premium up. At that point the cheeky whippersnapper said I was becoming a liability as I was getting older and less able to drive safely!

That's kids for you!

Chris

I read yesterday of a young lad with a Corsa whose premium was over £1000 with a black box fitted.

His car was stolen from work, luckily the black box was able to pinpoint its whereabouts and it had been abandoned only a few miles away.

When he retrieved it he found that the thief had scored 10 out of 10 for driving on the joy ride while the owner had only managed 7.4 on the way to work!

John

csearle wrote:One renewal year it would have pushed his premium up.

This is our experience also.

For us the increase in his premium(which is so low as to smack more of an "administration" charge" all but works out as the same on our campervan premium to have him on it so between us we balance out!


didds