Young drivers in Northern Ireland now pay the most in the UK
Northern Ireland has overtaken London as the dearest place in the UK to insure a young driver. The pressure to cut corners is real, and fronting is the corner that costs the most when a claim is made.
A seventeen year old in Belfast shopping for car insurance between July and September was quoted £2,851 on average. In Ards and North Down, a short drive away, the same driver averaged £1,918.
Those figures come from the latest CompareNI car insurance price index, a sample of more than 100,000 quotes. Drivers aged 17 to 24 in Northern Ireland now average £1,432 a year, ahead of London at £1,392. Insurance Today reports that the Northern Ireland figure rose 10 per cent in the quarter, while the average premium across the UK fell 5.2 per cent.
A separate quoted-price index tells the same story from a different sample. Prices rose 16.3 per cent in Northern Ireland over the year to September and fell 1 per cent in London, according to Insurance Business.
Here is the detail worth sitting with. The comparison site puts the gap down to higher claim costs and a poorer road safety record than Great Britain. A young driver is paying for the claims of the drivers around them long before they have made one of their own.
That is where the temptation starts. Naming a parent as the main driver of a car a teenager mostly drives, known as fronting, can look like a sensible saving. The Insurance Fraud Bureau says it is fraud and leaves the young driver without valid insurance. It can come to light in the questions after a collision, and more than 50 people a week are added to the Insurance Fraud Register for misrepresenting themselves on a motor application or at the point of claim.
The honest route is slower, but it holds. The same index shows the average premium for a 17 year old falling by more than 42 per cent by the age of 21.
A cheaper policy that will not pay out is not cheaper, it is uninsured driving with a receipt.