Car insurance cheaper with “Student” status

How not to get cheap car insurance

My very first car was a 1999 Punto Sporting 1.2 16V, which is insurance group 7. I passed my test at 17 years old in 2005. Getting an insurance policy on my own would set me back over £1,500 per year from the cheapest insurance provider. To reduce the cost was easy. Get my dad to take the insurance out in his name and put me on the policy as a named driver. I managed to find insurance for under £700 per year from Asda Insurance using this method. This was within my price range and the cheapest I could find.

However, as I found out later, this method is called “fronting” and is actually illegal. Insurance companies view this method as fraud because the parent is stating they are the main driver of the vehicle when in fact it is their son or daughter who is the main driver.

I wouldn’t recommend this method. Not only is it illegal but your insurance wouldn’t be valid – and the insurance company would know that a long time before you! You can get cheaper car insurance this way because personally I’m not convinced insurance companies go out of their way to actively try and stop this happening. They probably take your money and then simply don’t pay out if you ever need to claim. Plus, they could even have you for fraud. Proving fronting is probably relatively easy for insurance companies. If your parent is already a main driver on the insurance policy of another car then it is hard to explain how someone can be the prominent driver of two cars.

How to take advantage of your Student status to get cheap car insurance

Anyway, here comes the good news. If you are a student then you can get much cheaper car insurance compared to your non-student friends of the same age. However, this is only the case with one student friendly insurance company. This is with Endsleigh Insurance. They are the UK’s leading provider of student possessions insurance and they are the only insurance company to be recommended by the NUS (National Students Union).

Simply state your occupation as being a student when you apply for an online quote to see your insurance premiums drop. I went to university at 19 and while other companies were still quoting me over £1,500 2 years after I passed my test, Endsleigh quoted me £650.

My first car was in quite a high insurance group. Standard puntos are among the cheapest car to insure as they are in insurance group 3. However, because my car was a sports model it was in group 7. The majority of cars driven by people who have been driving for a short time are in the lower insurance groups meaning your insurance quotes with Endsleigh using your student status will be amongst the lowest priced you can find.