The cost of living crisis is pummelling all of us all at the moment – including learner drivers. Not only have costs for driving lessons climbed since the pandemic, but filling up the car for a spot of private practice isn’t exactly cheap either.

But private practice is one area where insurer Cuvva claims massive savings can be made.

Remember, to be test ready, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency recommends that you have around 44 hours of tuition with your instructor – plus at least 20 hours of private practice.

Serious cost

Learner drivers typically have to turn to mum and dad to not only help with private practice – but to also cover the cost of being added to the parents’ annual insurance policy.

According to Cuvva, that addition is seriously pricey with an average of £2,253 slapped on the premium. Ouch.

Location matters

Where you live also makes a big difference. For instance, along with Manchester and London, drivers in Birmingham have experienced the highest rises in premium prices when adding a learner.

For instance, putting a named learner driver on a policy brings the average premium up to £5,078. Without adding a learner, it drops to £1,142.

All in? That’s an annual premium difference of £3,936. Double ouch.

Be smart

To combat such huge rises, Cuvva recommends junking the annual policy approach altogether and signing up to temporary learner driver insurance instead.

This way you – or your parents – only pay for what you use, i.e., on an hourly basis. For example, let’s take Bristol. According to a search on a price comparison website, it would cost a Bristol-based parents £499 to be insured for their 2011 Vauxhall Astra Active.

Now add a 19-year-old son as a named driver who is learning to drive. This would see an additional £1,292 being added to the premium. That’s £1,791 more.

Go hourly

Cuvva says that if the son had instead opted for temporary learner driver insurance on an hour-by-hour basis – with a rate of £11.39 per hour – it would only cost the learner driver (or their parents) £277.80 to get in the 20 hours of private practice needed. That’s a saving of over £1,513. Not bad.

No risk

Better still, if you should happen to have a shunt during private practice, your folks won’t run the risk of having their policy or their no-claims bonus being affected because you’re on a separate policy.

That all sounds pretty smart to us – so do explore the option fully when considering how you’re going to insure yourself for private practice. You may be pleasantly surprised for once, instead of horrified at the cost. Plus your parents will thank you.

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Main image by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash