Who will insure a learner driver?

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Q AOur daughter is about to turn 17 and wants to learn to drive. My insurer has said it will not cover her as she is a learner. Is there a way to get her cover on our car or do we have to buy her her own one?

Congratulations to your daughter and good luck to you with the driving practice! Insuring a learner driver is expensive and, as you found out, many insurers will refuse to cover them at all. You could buy your daughter her own car, but insuring that, above the initial cost of purchase, will also be high. According to the Confused. com car insurance price index the average price for a 17-year-old driver in the last quarter of 2021 was £1,206. But depending upon what car you buy and where you live, this could be higher.

A solution is to take out stand alone learner driver insurance which runs alongside your existing policy. It means should your daughter have an accident it will not affect your no claims bonus. It takes an average six months to pass — although the Covid pandemic backlog means the waiting time for a test is much longer than usual.

It is typically the cheapest solution. Research from insurer Marmalade gives the example of parents paying £407 for their insurance which would rocket to £1,423 to add their 17-year-old learner driver child, as compared to £434 for a year’s learner driver insurance or £222 for six months through them.

There are a range of companies providing stand alone learner driver cover including Marmalade (wearemarmaland.co.uk), Collingwood Insurance Services (collingwood.co.uk), Covered (coveredlearnerdriver.com) and Veygo part of Admiral Insurance (veygo. co.uk). Cover can be bought for as little as an hour at a time, individual days that can be used as and when, weekly or monthly, or continuous cover for up to six or eight months. Some companies will give a full refund for the remaining time if she passes her test earlier than anticipated. It is important to shop around as costs vary, as do the terms and conditions of each policy. For example, some will offer a courtesy car if she is involved in an accident while others won’t. Also some exclude night-time driving.

You can also choose to have a black box fitted to your car which will monitor only your daughter’s driving. Going forward, black box insurance cover is usually the cheapest way to insure a newly qualified driver, although some insurers may insist everyone on the policy must be monitored by the black box if you continue to share the car.

Remember learner driver cover stops the moment your daughter passes her test so either you will have to drive her back from the test centre or have alternative cover in place. Some learner driver insurers, such as Marmalade, also offer policies that run alongside yours once she has passed her test, so she can build her own no claims bonus.