I’m well out of touch with the insurance options these days so I thought I’d ask the font of all knowledge!

For the last 15-20 years, we’ve been a one-car household with the car in my name and my wife as a named driver, current insurance is less then £200. However, now number one son is 17 and looking to start driving, also we are doing more stuff that means 2 cars in the household would be useful. Ideally, we want one big vehicle, large enough for family holidays with lots of kit, perhaps even a 4×4 or van. Then a small (focus type size) runabout that’ll do most of the miles. We’d definitely want my wife and I insured for both vehicles and my son on the smaller car, both if it’s not prohibitively expensive. I have no idea who will do the most miles in each vehicle.

What are our options for insurance?
Two policies with various named drivers?
Would my wife with 20 year’s of clean driving get a no claims discount if she’s never had her own insurance?
Some sort of household policy?
Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of?
Are there any (legitimate) ways to keep insurance at a sensible price with a young driver?

Thanks for any advice, although I suspect this will get expensive…

So many variables to be able to answer it (mostly around particular vehicles / postcodes etc) and, weirdly, your son might be cheaper to insure on a van or 4×4 (depending on the model of course) rather than a Focus type car as the insurance statistics may show it to be a lower risk.

Are there any (legitimate) ways to keep insurance at a sensible price with a young driver?

We’re using Marmalade for our daughter while she is learning…
https://www.wearemarmalade.co.uk/

As muffin, I’d take the learner driver out the equation for now…we’re using veygo whilst our son is learning

We recently replaced our smaller car, but due to covid and things had a long overlap with both the old and the new. I was quite surprised that our insurer (LV=) suggested putting them both on the same policy, and the extra premium wasn’t as much as I expected.

When we went from one car to two, 20 years ago, Direct Line had a scheme whereby the partner who had been a named driver could have their own policy and kick it off with something like 2 or 3 years NCB.

Talk to your present insurer, and if they don’t seem to offer anything reasonable, talk to others.