New ‘young’ driver – insurance recommendations.

Hi all,
I seem to be able to find answers to most of the problems in my life on here so thought I’d give this one ago.
My eldest is nearly 17 and is desperate to start learning to drive.
It’s obviously going to cost me plenty whichever way I go but what’s the best way to get him insured?
Buy a cheap low group car and insure it in his name straight away so he can try to build no claims?
Add him to my car as a named drive (1.6TDI Skoda Yeti) till he is older (paying more for the insurance but saving the cost of buying and running a cheap 2nd car)?
Buy a cheap low group car and insure it in my wife’s name with him as a named driver?
Any recommendations for other ways or insurance companies to try/avoid would be greatly appreciated.

He is obsessed with old water cooled VW’s and would be more than happy to learn in a 1980 Mk Jetta 1.1 litre (in fact he would be over the moon!), which would come under a classic policy. This may be a good way to keep costs down and let him learn in something he has a real interest in. But the specialist classic insurers may not be too keen on young drivers and the brakes and crash protection in a 35 year old car may not be the best for a new driver!!

Cheers,

Phil

The whole “adding them to your policy” loophole was closed years ago. a) the insurance will have to be in his name if he’s the main driver and b) it’s likely to be more expensive in the long run anyway.

Pick some cars, run them through a comparison website, see what comes out the other end.

My son just passed his test.

He’s ended up with a Classic Mini.

First quote in his name was £1200, adding my wife as a named driver dropped it to £800, adding me to £650 and then putting all of our cars on a multicar policy (although we each retain and earn our own no-claims) dropped another £100 off it.

None of the specialist classic insurers would look at insuring him until he’s 21 but Admiral do agreed value. He;s also on 5000 miles limit.

We didn;t bother to insure him prior to him passing his test – it was cheaper just to pay for more lessons to give him additional practice. I have a 3litre BMW, my wife a Golf GTi so insurance on our cars was pretty much out of the question in any event…