My soon to be 18yo son will be passing his test soon. Are there any tips/tricks such as adding me or my wife as named driver to help reduce the premium. seems newer and/or more premium brand vehicles are cheaper to insure than older ones. Any pointers greatly appreciated.

There is no easy way

If you want to save some money you have to call every insurer you can think of and give them all the details. The comparison sites are a waste of time and very often a real person working for the same company will be able to improve the quote sometimes significantly. They like the commission. The Telematics devices look good but sometimes the premium is higher to begin with.

Start ringing and good luck

My soon to be 18yo son will be passing his test soon. Are there any tips/tricks such as adding me or my wife as named driver to help reduce the premium

In the same position. The premium went up when I added me and my wife so that won’t work.

Best I got was just over £1k, and down to about £800 with a ‘black box’ fitted. Which isn’t too bad. That was on a cheap old polo I was thinking of buying the youth.

Newer vehicles are probably cheaper as they have lots of safety features.

Get your son in front of a computer, spreadsheet at the ready and get quoting.

Yeah, sometimes cheaper to have parents named, sometimes not.

Sometimes cheaper for an older car and then again, sometimes newer cars so have a list of vehicles your considering.

Consider the telematics but check the limitations.

Have a look if pass plus will save any dosh but often the money saved is no more or less than the extra lesson.

I started off with a joint policy for my brother and I. He had already been driving a few years and had a bit of NCB so bought the price down quite a lot.

I was with Admiral at the time who offered NCB for the named driver if I get a new policy with them. Following year I got a new policy with Admiral in my name, which was considerably less than others as Admiral gave me a NCB. After that my “named driver NCB” was converted into a real NCB that I could use with any provider. So I was kinda locked into the Admiral system for a few years after which I was free to do whatever.

Be careful of this tactic as named drivers are often considered to rarely use the car and can have limitations on the policy such as limited mileage or usage.

Have a look if pass plus will save any dosh but often the money saved is no more or less than the extra lesson.

although given the propensity of young people to kill themselves and others not long after passing their test this might be worth doing anyway…

…does he need a car though? Or could he be named on family car to build age and experience (assumed they drive parents car slightly more responsibly).

Our 19 year old apprentice had a black box fitted it’s shocking (in a very good way!) how fast his premium is coming down especially after 12 months.

Fully comp seems to be cheapest nowadays.
If you can play around with the job title, without actually lying of course.
Newer cars are sometimes cheaper even if they are “sportier”

19yo speaking here; adding parents on as named drivers knocked down the premium every time.

If he’s going to do low mileage then stick about 6000mi in, it worked out as the cheapest for me – any less, then you’re a higher risk because you don’t gain as much experience over the year; any more, and you’ve more chances to wrap the car round a tree.

Try unexpected cars for a teenager, none of this Corsa/Polo rubbish. Insurance for them will be through the roof.

Look at older but equally practical cars, like wee Suzuki Alto/Wagon R (he’ll hate you), Audi A2 (I have one), Subaru/Jags from the 02 era if you’re not bothered about tax&fuel economy. If you’d rather he had a newer car, just avoid the wee cars that his mates are all driving, as insurance companies will charge through the roof for a boy-racer whip.

I did a lot of research over a large period of time and chose the diesel A2 because:
-£30 tax
-60-70mpg
-Diesel is cheap at the mo
-Active owner’s club/forum
-Value forecast to increase
-Insurance for an 18yo was about £700 in a rough area of Glasgow
-It was way comfier/better built than anything else I could afford

Shop around but think past just insurance and cost price.

19yo speaking here;

Thank you for your help, named drivers not helping at the moment but have found the premium branded cars are cheaper insurance

Have a look at Fronting and dont even try it youll get caught out, and insurance will be very hard to obtain for all parties in future, as well as costly

Have a look at Fronting and dont even try it youll get caught out,

I don’t think anyone has suggested fronting. Adding a second person as a named driver is completely legit, pretending that the lower risk is the main driver is not.

car dealer suggested insuring a car in the dads name and letting son drive it,(obviously to get the sale) after few months car got written off, insurance then interviewed all passengers, 2 quite seriously hurt, and car written off, who stated son usually drove car to work etc, insurance paid out for them, but the HP company demanded the full cost of vehicle to be repaid for next 2.5 years,also insurance went up hugely next few years.

So owner insures at their home address and is majority user, named driver who is an occasional user of vehicle, dont forget youll also need buisnees use insurance if your travelling to more than one place of work

I put my son and his car (18yr old son 10 yr old car) on an Admiral multi car insurance policy. It was slightly more expensive for me and my wife’s individual cars but overall when adding the three together it was by far the cheapest option. We got him and his 1.4 VW Golf covered for around £750.

As I pay for all three that’s what worked best for me.

There are some new driver specialist companies out there. Both my 18 yr old twins now have their own cars. The postcode doesn’t help much, but he has an X reg Suzuki Jimny 1300 with Tesco Black Box insured for 10k miles for £2k comp, me as named driver, and she has W reg Fiesta Zetec 1300 with Ingenie (black box) for £1700 comp, again, me as named driver. Both policies opened when they were 17, so very punitive on age too

These don’t all crop up in comparison site searches, so google specialist young driver insurance.

Tesco Black box offers extra insured miles for safe driving, and Ingenie refunds premium for safe driving every quarter. She’s earned a few quid back for her old man. Check Quidco via search box, (not via the compare function) , both had decent cashback deals too.

I got a quote for adding him to my 07 plate Discovery 3. £7k. 😀

There are some new driver specialist companies out there. Both my 18 yr old twins now have their own cars. The postcode doesn’t help much, but he has an X reg Suzuki Jimny 1300 with Tesco Black Box insured for 10k miles for £2k comp, me as named driver, and she has W reg Fiesta Zetec 1300 with Ingenie (black box) for £1700 comp, again, me as named driver. Both policies opened when they were 17, so very punitive on age too

Postcode makes such a difference, the premium for my 21 y/o with a West Yorkshire postcode in his 3rd year of driving is still more than the newly qualified 17 y/o with a rural Scottish postcode (same car model) – £1250 vs £1000.

Yep, good old West Yorks. Apparently we are near the top of the leader board for fraudulent claims….. 🙁