Amazed to discover that we can’t get 17yo daughter added to car insurance for learning to drive in a 1.9 diesel golf. Anyone come accross this before & found an an insurer that will do it?

Tried More Th>n?

Just wait until she passes!

(We bought a small, low power petrol for this reason a couple of weeks ago!)

Marmalade were fine with mine in a 1.6 Beetle convertible.

Edit – specialist learner insurance always seems about £20 a week and will cover pretty much any car that is already insured elsewhere.

Couple of insurers do a stand alone ‘learning to drive’ insurance which can be purchased from 1 day to 5 months at a time. Worth considering. You keep your current insurance running and this sits next to it.

Marmalade & dayinsure are two.

Matt – yes!

Coming to conclusion about add on insurance in short term – she’ll just need to get her skates on & pass! (or stick to bike!)

Hmmmm – and I thought their cycling habit was expensive!!

Tried More Th>n?

No chance! Moreth>n Smart Wheels perhaps, but that means having a telematics box in the car with conditions you will all have to drive to.

Hmmmm – and I thought their cycling habit was expensive!!

I am dreading it 🙁

No chance! Moreth>n Smart Wheels perhaps, but that means having a telematics box in the car with conditions you will all have to drive to.

No, it doesn’t

Avoid the black box type insurance at all costs, when she passes. So many friends have been caught out – any infringement of the rules and you get bumped an additional premium to pay, also means any other user of the car is stuck with the same rules!

We’ve got Admiral Multicar for us two plus daughter 1 who has her own car now, she’s got 8 months no claims since she got her own car (and own policy under Multicar), just renewed for £900 for the coming year which I thought was pretty good. She’s 19, got a 1.2 Clio.

Just added Abigale age 17,onto our Fiat 500 1.4 for the rest of the year, 8 months for £92 extra, fully comp with Admiral Multicar.

A cousin (17) was bought a golf 1.8 GTI for a first car last week. Premium quoted £9k!! It was sold on sharpish.

No, it doesn’t

Go on?

Was quoted an increase in premium to £174 per month to add our 19yo learner to our Honda Jazz (yes, the retirees weapon of choice for making progress) by RAC.

Went with the learner insurance instead (£250 for 4 months).

A cousin (17) was bought a golf 1.8 GTI for a first car last week. Premium quoted £9k!! It was sold on sharpish.

Knowing what I was like at that age (a complete tool!), I’d imagine giving any 17 year old a Golf 1.8t GTi, you’d be counting down the minutes, or possibly even seconds, before it was liberally splattered all over a field/tree/lampost/wall. The insurance just reflects that.

Can see the logic, a 1.8 makes it a mk4, so probably quite a cheap car, but yes… Chance of ending up upside down in a ditch is rather high!

Avoid the black box type insurance at all costs, when she passes. So many friends have been caught out – any infringement of the rules and you get bumped an additional premium to pay

Shirley Knott!?!

Try Adrian Flux or Flux Direct. They will provide learner only insurance. Both my twins had insurance with them as learners. Em got fully comp with me as named driver on her Gran’s old Fiesta for £350.

Now she’s passed, Em pays £1700 comprehensive with black box, which rewards good driving with refunded premium every quarter, up to 20% of the premium. That’s with Ingenie.

James has a Jimny, £2000 for up to 10k miles. Good driving rewards with extra insured miles. Tesco Bank Black Box insurance.

Both black box systems provide regular updates on driving behaviour which they can log into and see their progress. The boxes ensure they stick to the speed limits religiously, and the Ingenie policy makes specific references to braking and cornering.

So no penalties unless they drive like cocks.

There’s also a safety aspect. If the black box detects a collision it generates a phone call to a nominated phone.

Avoid the black box type insurance at all costs, when she passes. So many friends have been caught out – any infringement of the rules and you get bumped an additional premium to pay

No idea about all of them, but Smart Wheels won’t charge you any extra in year 1. They will terminate the policy though if you really take the piss.

No go with more than – reason – age – just 17, and points (only 3) on wife’s licence.

Seems Golf (even 1.9 diesel) is deemed a sporty car by all insurers. Would far rather she was driving that than some 950cc baked bean can on wheels.

I quite like the idea of them having the black box ( more for boy than girl…) as an invcentive/spy

Several websites give the insurance group for each model.
Can be surprising what group each car is. Not only engine size but trim changes group.

FWIW Moreth>n (among other) won’t insure anyone under 30 on a Golf GT TDI as the “GT” nomenclature marks it a ‘hot hatch’! A real ‘computer says no’ scenario.

Definitely worth looking around, and yes, going up a trim level even given the same sized engine. Black box isn’t a bad idea frankly.

Our 17 year old bought a Golf before he’d passed and got short term learner insurance with Adrian Flux for £90 a month. He passed 2 months later and then insured with Tesco, for £1200. They came around to fit a black telematics box but refused to when they spotted it had been lowered by 40mm. Got a full refund (less £30 admin and pro-rata usage), then went to Aviva,cost £1700 fully comp with breakdown/legal cover etc but no black box and okay about the modification thankfully. It can be done but lots of shopping and asking around we found.

Just be careful, as others have noted, the premiums generally go up once test has been passed (no requirement for someone with a licence to accompany them).
We have had three young drivers over the last five years, I’ve had all three insured on a Skoda Fabia at the same time, never paid more than £1,200, now considerably less. We used LV, found them very competitive. We found comparison websites appeared more expensive, so worth shopping around.