CAR INSURANCE - INSURING YOUNGER DRIVERS

When I was in my final year of A-levels, most people had passed their driving tests and very quickly 6 cars were written off. One was rolled into a ditch, one driven onto a soft verge and spun into a telegraph pole; one leapt off the road, hit a hedge, somersaulted and rolled four times landing on its roof. Another was wiped out by a driver overshooting a 30mph junction at 60mph (which wasn't the fault of my 17-year old classmate) and the others were simply driven into other vehicles. Accidents such as these are the reason, so insurance companies tell us, that premiums for young drivers are so incredibly high. Pottering to and from the school in my vintage VW Beetle, I resented paying through the nose for someone else's stupidity.

You can, almost, understand the insurance company's point. However, it is also worth remembering that a 26-year old who has been driving for two days will have a lower insurance premium than a 21 year old who passed his test first time when he was 17. But wait - I nearly forgot, all under 25s are baseball cap wearing, monosyllabic anti-authoritarians whose notion of a speed limit is how many pills they can pop in one night, aren't they?

So, what are the options? Should there be more than one car in your household, you could put the youngest driver on one of the policies as a named driver. This will increase your premium substantially and also will not amass them any no claims discount. The other option of course is to get a small, cheap, undesirable car that will hopefully be low on the insurance group. Once the car is in your possession, keep it in a garage and ensure that it has a decent alarm system as this should erode the premium slightly.



Small, cheap, undesirable? Not many teenagers would gladly go for that. And of course, if you are thinking of buying something like this for your son or daughter, there is also the safety aspect to consider. Your child might be the best driver on the planet, safe, conscientious, law-abiding and generally spot on - but not everyone else on the road is. Older cars won't have all of the safety bells and whistles of newer vehicles and, should the worst occur, your child stands a greater chance of injury. In addition, older vehicles won't have ABS or the sheer power to get you out of situations. Organisations such as Learn And Live do sterling work campaign...