Once children hit 17 – many of them are keen to learn how to drive – but the high price of insurance for learner drivers can be a problem. Once they have their provisional licence – you can add them as a named driver on your own insurance policy. Adding a learner driver to your policy will increase the premiums by quite a lot – around €800 a year in some cases .
We did a small online price comparison to see where we could find the cheapest car insurance for a 19 year old learner driver as a named driver on his mother’s policy. The quotes were obtained on February 20th and 21st 2010.
Car insurance quotes were requested for a 45 year old female with a full clean licence driving a 2004 Fiat Panda 1.2l in the Galway area.
Her son was added as a named driver – he is 19 , a student with a provisional licence that he has held for a year. These are the online insurance quotes we obtained for comprehensive insurance with breakdown cover included. (Cheapest price first)
Aviva €1210.48 – with a €600 excess
123.ie €1221.41 with €500 excess and windscreen cover
Quinn €1284.54 300 excess incl breakdown
Chill.ie €1412 with a €250 excess and windscreen cover
Quoteme.ie €1624.20
Insure.ie €1612.23 – €600 excess amd breakdown NOT incl
AA €1855.39 windscreen ncb protection (No breakdown cover)
FBD – no quote could be provided online
Surprisingly – Aviva – (formerly known as Hibernian) came out with the lowest price – some €645 cheaper than the highest price in the small survey. The next cheapest was from 123.ie – which did include windscreen cover and a lower excess.
One extra financial advantage we discovered with Aviva insurance for provisional licence holders – is that they offer 6 months FREE accompanied learner driver insurance if you buy 10 driving lessons from them.
The cost of insurance cover with Aviva for the mother alone was €323.61 – so the 6 months free cover for the provisional licence holder is worth €443.43 in this example. The Aviva driving school say lessons cost from €42 an hour – so basically the lessons end up costing you nothing.