You have no doubt heard about temporary car insurance and may have been looking for a policy. You may also have realised that there are not many, if any insurers that are willing to provide you with a policy as you are under 21 years of age.
There are currently no specialist or mainstream car insurance companies providing temp cover under 21. This means that if you are a young driver looking to insure yourself to drive a car for a day or anywhere up to 28 days it is currently not possible. Looking at the current providers the absolute minimum age is 21 but this is only for a few of the companies. Others require you to be at least 23 whilst the norm seems to be for providers of this type of cover to have a requirement for you to be 25 years of age or over.
Whilst this may seem unfair or discriminatory they are only working on sound business principles. When you are a provider of coverage for young drivers there is an increased risk with providing insurance to this age group. Statistically young drivers, particularly those under the age of 25 are more likely to have an accident resulting in a claim being made. This means potentially more cost for the insurer.
With an annual policy you are paying premiums that cover 365 days of the year whilst temp cover can literally mean one days worth of premiums for the insurer. Even with raising the cost of premiums for younger drivers to what can be exorbitant amounts the insurers still cannot make under temp cover for under 21 year olds financially viable.
This leaves a significant minority of drivers with no coverage so how do you get temporary car insurance under 21? Whilst it is currently unavailable to this age group there is an alternative that works in much the same way except rather than getting insurance for a number of days you can get insured a month at a time.
Often referred to as pay as you go or monthly car insurance it is currently the only alternative to temp cover under 21. You can obtain this cover online with some of the same insurers that provide temporary cover. Although there is a minimum of 1 month commitment if you were going to take out several days of cover anyway then you will find that the cost is quite competitive.