If you’re looking to get your first car insurance, you’ll soon find out that car insurance for new drivers can be very expensive, particularly car insurance for teens.
Whether you’re looking for insurance for yourself, or helping your teenage son or daughter get cover, this is an essential guide to young driver car insurance. We’ll discuss your options and explore some ways you may be able to save money on the price of a policy.
Why Is Car Insurance For Teens So Expensive?
Car insurance is all about risk. Insurers take many factors in to account when calculating a premium and one of those factors is how likely it may be that you’ll have an accident. When you’re new to driving, you might not be so confident behind the wheel as you lack the experience of someone who has been driving for a while.
And it’s because of this increased risk that insurers charge young drivers more for insurance than more experienced drivers. But the cost of cover will start to fall once you can demonstrate that you’re a careful and conscientious driver.
What is Black Box Insurance?
Black box insurance involves fitting a small device in your car that monitors your driving in real time. This device records certain aspects of your driving, including your speed, the distance you’ve travelled, you’re driving style and the time of day at which your journeys take place. It also monitors your braking, your cornering, and the type of roads you drive on.
Insurers use this driving data to calculate how safe you are as a driver, and they’ll adjust the price of your insurance accordingly. In this way, it’s possible to make savings on the price of your policy.
Is Black Box Insurance the Best Option for Young Drivers?
Black box insurance isn’t always the best option for some young drivers. The price of your policy might vary from one month to the next depending on the sort of driving you do, which can make it difficult to budget. Also, if your work requires you to drive long distances, or to travel after dark, then you might not end up saving much money with black box insurance.
Can You Get Black Box Insurance If You Share a Car?
Getting black box insurance may also not be the best option if you are sharing your car with other drivers as their driving style and behaviour may impact your driving data and scores.
You can read our full guide to black box insurance. This type of insurance certainly has its benefits, but it might be more reliable, and more cost-effective, to get your own young driver car insurance policy.
Young Driver Insurance Without a Black Box
Beyond black boxes, young drivers have two options when it comes to car insurance:
- Getting your own independent car insurance policy.
- Becoming a named driver on a parent’s car insurance policy – or on any other experienced driver’s policy.
There are pros and cons to each of these approaches. Let’s take a look at each in turn.
Adding a Child To Your Car Insurance Policy as a Named Driver
If you’re a named driver on a policy, you’ll usually have the same level of cover as the main policyholder. So if it’s a comprehensive car insurance policy, the named driver will also get comprehensive cover.
Adding a named driver to a policy will increase the price of the premiums. However, the overall policy will likely still cost less than it would for a young driver to get a policy of their own. As such, becoming a named driver can potentially help young drivers make savings on the cost of cover.
However, there are some downsides to being a named driver:
- As a named driver, the young driver may not be able to build up a no claims discount. So while they might pay less for their cover in the short-term, in the long-term they may miss out on some huge savings, and as such might end up paying more for cover overall. This will vary with different insurers so you should check when you are getting quotes.
- Certain policy extensions and benefits may only apply to the main policyholder. For example, the insurer might outline a different permitted use of the vehicle for the named driver. So always check the policy documents.
Head here to read our full guide to adding a named driver to your insurance policy.
Affordable Car Insurance For Teens without a Black Box
The second option for young drivers is to get a car insurance policy of your own. This will almost certainly cost you more than being a named driver on your parent’s policy, and it will likely cost you more than black box insurance too. However, it will bring certain benefits:
- You can drive your own car, with no restrictions on when, where, and how far you can drive it. This just isn’t an option as a named driver, and black box policies may penalise you for certain driving styles.
- You can benefit from a range of optional policy extensions and benefits, including breakdown cover.
- You can start building up a no claims discount, which can help you make huge savings on the cost of cover after just one year of careful driving.
Beyond building up a no claims discount, there are other things you can do to reduce the price of your policy. Head here to read our full guide to getting cheap car insurance as a young driver.
We Specialise In Insuring Younger Drivers
We offer competitive cover for young drivers with a range of useful extras, including legal cover, misfuelling cover and optional RAC breakdown cover.
As soon as your policy starts you’ll start building your no claims discount. You’ll also have the chance to protect it after just one claim-free year.
So if you want cheaper car insurance, get in touch. You can get a quote for young person car insurance and buy online in minutes.
