UKC

My soon to be 17 son wants to start driving on his 17 th birthday . He can drive of a fashion  , as in make the car move on a large private piece of tarmac , manoeuvre around cones stop annd start  and is making a fair stab at reversing . I’ve started to look for a 1 litre cheap small car for him to venture out onto the road in after 10 or so lessons with a real instructor   . I’m planning to start searching for insurance soonish . I’ve not searched yet but assume it will be eye wateringly expensive .  All thoughts , advice , tales of woe on the above please .

My advice is don't look for insurance to suit a car, look for a car to suit insurance. Forget engine size and look at the insurance category. 

it ok when they are learning as you insure the car with them as named learned driver. 

the policy we used ended as they pass there test and you start again with just them insured.

i used ticker for my lad, they send a black box in the post which plugs into the cars electric system and he uses an app to see how good or bad he's driving..... 2 1/2 years in and all good. cost for a 1.25 fiesta is around £120 per month 

Whilst my son was learning we insured him on my wife's car which made practice easy.

Cover for him lapsed as soon as he passed his test but it was very cost effective, I seem to remember about an additional £100.

He went off to uni shortly after so it didn't matter that he wasn't insured.

I've just been looking into this, as daughter will be 17 in a month. One important point is that provisional licence is whole different wold from full licence. With some shopping around I've got a quote to add my daughter onto my policy for about £60 more than my normal renewal price. When she passes her test, it's £6000. She won't be driving my car once she has a licence

So for now I'm adding her on to my policy for some practice between lessons, and she can start thinking about how much she really wants a car once she passes her test. 

One thing to watch out for when your insurance comes up for renewal: Lots of companies, including my current insurer, won't insure anyone under 21 on my car. So if I'd renewed as normal I wouldn't have been able to add her when she turns 17. I've checked and made sure my new insurer will take teenagers. 

Insurers get really shirty when an insurance is put in mum or dad's name but the main driver IS the child called fronting. On investigation insurers are correctly entitled to turn down a claim as not given the correct information

I worked for axa for many years and saw too many of these cases BE WARNED

Was that reply meant for me? It's not really relevant to my post. 

Having a company car can be your friend in this situation as their insurance may allow junior to drive both before and after passing. So if you have one, or the choice between a company car or extra salary, it's worth looking into.

I had the rather weird insurance situation that daughter at 17/18 was ok to learn on my company car and drive it once passed but elder brother at 24 couldn't because he didn't live at home. After being privatised, the insurance changed and daughter couldn't drive it because she was under 21 but son then could - but never did because this was when he was often travelling the world between contracts. Only time I've ever had a company car and it was a peach - Sirocco with the 1.4L turbocharged & supercharged engine and great handling - frequently over the Snake pass, best run one time on an empty road when I managed to keep my speed at 50 or above the whole way.

18 year old daughter coming up to one year of solo driving

as said above, fit the car to the insurance quote and ensure they’re the main driver so they start building their no claims. Other than that, black box. Cuts the premium and helps ensure their confidence doesn’t outstrip their competence.

Adding mum, dad or both as named drivers on sons policy can reduce the premium