Provisional Driver Insurance – Why so cheap?

or – What am I doing wrong?

I typed minime’s details into Confused.com and Moneysupermarket.com and they both gave me a similar list of car insurance quote for my 17 year old lad who is going to be driving his own car (Nissan Micra) on a provisional license. Quotes were generally in the ballpark of £300-£350 which is about £1K less than I was expecting.

I was then reading up on learner insurance on Money Saving expert and followed a link for learner specific insurance and got a quote for about £1,400.00

What am I doing wrong? Part of me wants to just get the insurance for £300 and not worry about it, but……

Insurance will go up once they pass the test. Prior to test you’re always driving supervised by a qualified experienced driver and less likely to crash than when you’re on your own or being encouraged by peers.

Relatively few learners have (at fault) accidents. When they do, they tend to be relatively low speed so aren’t right offs. More over they will very rarely have accidents which result in permanent injury or death to a bunch of passengers – which is where the real costs in insurance kick in.

Whats the difference between the quotes? I would guess did you put the drivers in the other way round (main v’s named) or the excess is very different, or the learner policy covers multiple cars, or guarantees to convert to a full policy on passing the test? Something must be different. £300 ish sounds about right for adding them to YOUR insurance, if you have several years no claims – you didn’t answer a question like that out of habit?

As others have said, learners are relatively low risk as under supervision. Just paid £700 for MCJnr, picking up the car today. We paid more to go with Admiral, as they will be cheapest to switch when he’s passed.

I was just looking for insurance for him. I drive a company car and don’t have no claims history as I don’t have my own insurance. I did not put his mum on at this stage, I wanted to see how much the price reduced when I did.

When I saw the first figures I assumed I had made a mistake so I took a lot of time checking the Moneysupermarket submission and then ended up with practically the same results (the top three were the same companies and price, after that things were slightly different.)

I guess nothing to stop you taking out a cheaper provisional insurance then cancelling once test past and going with the cheapest post test? Probably have to cover an admin fee for cancellation but usually a pro rata refund for unused time I think.

No – the learner policy just ends as soon as the test is passed, (new driver can’t even drive home from test centre) no cancellation necessary. Don’t remember getting any refund either, but that might be because any due was swallowed up by the admin fee.

MCTD’s approach makes little sense to me why not buy the cheap learner insurance followed by the cheap new driver policy?

I did not put his mum on at this stage, I wanted to see how much the price reduced when I did.

Daft question – does the provisional policy only cover the driver on a currently insured vehicle and basically bump off the back of the insured driver (who is supervising)?

I seem to recall (many moons ago) something similar which essentially allowed me to accrue no claims on my provisional but, if I did have a bump, (a) was only 3rd party and (b) relied on the extant insurance policy. – it was offered by a few companies but after clicking through a few each made it clear I could only take it out with the main insurer.

Daft question – does the provisional policy only cover the driver on a currently insured vehicle and basically bump off the back of the insured driver (who is supervising)?

I think there are different options, but the policy we bought was entirely separate to the main driver insurance, and had there been an accident during a lesson wouldn’t have affected the normal insurance. At least that’s what we were told, not sure I entirely believed it, but didn’t need to test it!

MCTD’s approach makes little sense to me why not buy the cheap learner insurance followed by the cheap new driver policy?

Avoids cancellation and admin fees, and builds up his no claims from the start of the policy.

MCTD’s idea is where I was going, but I wanted to make sure I was not blindly walking into a bear trap.

I will also check ongoing insurance costs for ‘after he passes’ incase MTCD’s experience is the same for us.

All good timing as the DVLA has just updated his application to “approved” after about 8 weeks :-)

My daughter’s Mini One cost just over £300 to insure as a learner with two additional named drivers.

Test today and if she passes the policy is void and she has to take out a new scheme. This will be around £1100.

Its all about risk. As learner she is always supervised.

another shout out for admiral multicar with a new young driver. I contacted a lot of insurance companies and asked about options for when learning and passed.

No one could get near admiral re cost and level of cover. She also didn’t need to have a blackbox, which meant that when we drove the car we weren’t being tracked as well….

Interesting – Admiral have never been the cheapest when I’ve been insuring any of our cars including the one that my daughters use (1 x passed two years and the other being used my my two other daughters who are taking their tests in a couple of weeks).

Its pretty straightforward. We had the choice (From the same company) of

Learner policy = £3-400
Learner policy + cover when passed = £1200
Passed Policy = £1300 +

We went for the Learner policy and covid kicked in so we saved loads whilst my lad drove on his provisional all the way through. The amount once passed went up proportionately so he ends up with his 12mths no claims. I think it cost about £500 on top of the £300 annual so £800 all in for the year.