The cost of living has been biting particularly hard in the last few years, and motorists have had to deal with their fair share of issues – from rising fuel costs to sudden unexpected panic-buying. Now, young drivers have another pressing issue to contend with – the spiralling costs of car insurance. Costs are now so high that authorities worry that it may encourage drivers to engage in fronting, which seems harmless to lots of people on the surface but is an increasingly common type of fraud, carrying all the associated legal risks.
So if you’ve recently bought a used or salvaged car from our online car auctions with plans to get a new driver behind the wheel, here’s what you need to know.
What’s going on with car insurance?
Generally, younger drivers tend to find that their insurance quotes turn out to be expensive and get cheaper with each successive year (often helped along nicely if they manage to maintain a decent no-claims bonus). The reason that these quotes often start out so expensive is because insuring drivers tends to be a lot riskier for insurers, as the inexperience of a younger driver makes them more likely to become involved in an accident – so to offset that risk, insurers charge more.
Now, however, those prices are higher than ever. Average policy quotes for 17 to 24-year-olds now stand close to £3000 a year – which makes them, frankly, unaffordable for some young drivers. That’s prompting some of them to search for alternatives and workarounds. The Insurance Fraud Bureau is worried that this is a factor in the rising levels of fronting.
What is fronting and why is it bad?
In a nutshell, fronting essentially involves putting forward someone else as the “main driver” of the car, even though in reality they won’t be the one driving it most of the time. Fronting cases often involve new drivers naming their parents as the main drivers of the car, even though they know they’ll likely be driving it themselves. Experienced drivers are judged as less of a risk and so will be charged lower premiums – so new or learner drivers sometimes see it as a good way to save money on their car insurance.
However, as the IFB has pointed out, the practice remains illegal, as it’s regarded as a type of fraud. It’s easy to see why – it does involve misleading the insurer, either intentionally or by omission. It has a range of consequences, but some of the most obvious ones include invalidating the insurance policy, and possibly even a criminal conviction.
It's worth noting, however, that putting a parent forward as a named driver on a policy in itself isn’t necessarily illegal, as long as they will indeed be the one who drives the car most of the time. As for the otherwise prohibitive costs of car insurance for young drivers, there are unfortunately no easy solutions offhand.
We’ll do what we can here at RAW2K though – you can save yourself a significant amount of money by buying a used or salvaged car rather than a new one, right here in our online car auctions. We’ve got a huge range of salvage cars to choose from in our online car auctions, including many from world-famous brands like Mercedes, Citroen and Peugeot. Our auctions are refreshed on a daily and weekly basis, so there are always bargains to be found. Why not take a look around, and see what you can find?
