UKC

I just phoned up my insurers to add my girlfriend onto my car insurance as a learner driver and was suprised to be told they wouldn't do it after taking all her details. I've been with priveledge for a few years, even though it's a little more expensive than the competition I'm happy to pay for a better service (or so I thought).

She's 29 years old and it's a 10 year old subaru outback, I've been driving for 11 years with no claims it just seems insane to me. I was added onto way more expensive cars as a 17 year old boy when I started learning.

Is there anything I can do to contest this or is it just insurance company says no, live and learn and go with someone else next year? Buying another insurance policy for her seems ludicrous, why wont they take my money?

I did phone up coming up to my renewal and asked if they added leaner drivers and they said yes. It was just a quick enquiry as I was quite happy to go with them again, don't remember giving my policy number so I guess they wont have a record of it.

In reply to Sharp:

Could be anything - her job for example might be regarded as high risk by Privelege. I was insured by Toyota and they flatly refused to put my son on as a provisional.

Appealing is pointless - you can either shop around and change insurers or do what I did and buy a cheap small car with his own insurance.

In reply to Sharp:

f.. em and change insurer. I'm just about to do the same after 17 years ! loyalty with one, who year after year just pushed their luck. I challenge them, they drop the price so I stay with them, but this year they're unbelievably high after adding my young daughter to the insurance, so I'm off.!!!

In reply to JamButty:

Trouble is I'm a little way off my renewal and I've paid up front, wont be renewing with them again for sure.

In reply to Sharp:

Try Marmalade insurance, I used this when my daughter was learning. You take a policy along side of your existing policy to cover the learner, about £40 a month as I remember.

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2...

Once she has passed Diamond insurance specializes in insurance for girls.

In reply to tintinandpip:

I wouldn't go for diamond, they were the only people i used one of my cards to pay for anything and I got £180 swiped out my account after a couple of months. The card didn't have any other transactions on it!

In reply to tintinandpip:

They also aren't allowed to specialise in insurance for girls any more so you won't get a different rate from them if you're male or female.

In reply to Sharp:


That shouldn't matter, if you cancel insurance they should give you a pro-rata refund as long as you haven't claimed this period (if you have, your entire premium is due) minus an admin charge. That admin charge might be £50, but it does at least allow you to change insurer if that's what you want to do.

In reply to Sharp:


Surely they will have some kind of refund policy if you choose to terminate the policy early eg if you got rid of the car? They can make the terms sufficiently unattractive to make it not worthwhile, but you can balance that against the saving you'd get by switching insurers.

Slightly different, but when I last changed cars my insurer at the time wanted an eye-watering amount to cover the new car for the remainder of the term of my existing policy. Because I was only a couple of months from the renewal date they didn't offer a refund for the unused time on the policy (as clearly stated in their Ts & Cs when I bought the policy, so no quibbles there). Nonetheless, it was cheaper for me to write off the remaining time on the old policy and insure the new car with much more reasonably-priced alternative insurer.

Insurers have no loyalty to you, you don't owe them any either. If they go so far as to flatly refuse to sell you the cover you need, ditch them without a second thought.

In reply to Sharp:

I think priveledge specialise in specific risk profiles, ie. Low risk. That's the way their marketing looks.

It makes sense that they are not interested in drivers outside of that risk profile.

Use this link.

http://www.nldinsurance.com/?nldi=Mjk5

Or you can look at it on my website here

http://learnwithrich.co.uk/interesting-stuff/insurance/

The learner gets their own policy that work in addition to yours. If they have an accident it does not affect your NCB or history & the cover is fully comp even if yours is not.

In reply to Richard Wilson:

Thanks for that, I'll have a closer look this weekend, if it's going to be £200 for a few months it may well be cheaper to change insurers. It's something that will probably get done once she's passed provided it doesn't up the premium too much so if it works out cheaper then may as well go sooner rather than later...same month as the tax and mot though, the joys of the open road.

In reply to Sharp:

The big benefit is that it does not affect your claims history or NCB.