Learner Driver Insurance

Car insurance is compulsory for any learner driver who is taking private driving lessons i.e. lessons that are not provided by a professional driving instructor. With learner driver insurance in your hands, you can drive your parents’, grandparents’ or your relatives’ cars without risking their no claims. Many times provisional drivers find it difficult to get quotes from insurers. These drivers with their little experience represent a greater insurance risk to the companies and hence they are unwilling to provide insurance coverage.

One may wonder why it is so difficult to get cheap insurance premium for learner drivers. The reason is that statistics prove that learner drivers may be a more risky proposition for the insurance companies. Statistics have shown that a new driver is more likely to be involved in an accident in the first year after passing the driving test than at any other time. Also for any given mile of driving, the risk of an accident involving injury or death is about seven times higher in the age group of 17-20 compared to the age group of 40 and above.

At the least, a third party insurance cover is required for driving any car. Normally due to high costs of driving lessons, many learners choose to take extra driving lessons in a private vehicle under the guidance of family or friends. Any learner driver taking these private lessons needs to make sure that they have appropriate insurance. In most cases, a specific learner driver’s insurance policy will more than likely be needed.

Most of the drivers expect that after passing their test, the premium on their insurance policies would be reduced. However mostly this is not the case.  A newly qualified driver is considered to be at a similar risk as a learner driver. Today many companies provide independent learner driver insurance for all types of cars. Many learners as well as their parents feel that there is no need to take an extra learner drivers’ insurance cover and a fully comprehensive car insurance policy should be suitable for their needs as it will also cover claims involving a learner driver. They could not be further from the truth.

If a learner driver wants to take lessons with his or her parents, then their car insurance company may be contacted and the person learning to drive may be added as an additional driver to the existing policy. Driving a car without insurance cover is against the law and if any such person is caught, the car may be confiscated and destroyed. Also, penalty points would be applied on the provisional license of the driver.

You may find that many car insurance companies don’t offer cheap car insurance for learners and thus may refuse to add your name to your parent's car insurance policy. In this case it is best to get an independent learner driver insurance. This has the added benefit that should an accident happen, the claims will go through the learner’s name and so will not affect in any way the owner of the car being used for driving lessons. You will also notice that it is a short term contract rather than an annual policy and it makes more sense to top for this kind of policy which will server for the duration that you need it as a learner and not more.