Car insurance is usually significantly more expensive for novice drivers. But with a few tricks you can make the policy cheaper.
From the point of view of car insurance companies, young drivers are a risk because of their inexperience. And indeed, the numbers show that young drivers are often involved in accidents. Insurers counter this risk with correspondingly higher premiums for novice drivers and less favorable no-claims categories (SF class).
But there are some tricks you can use to lower your premiums.
The simplest thing is: Wait a few more years with your own car. For example, use your parents’ car during this time. Get car insurance when you’re a few years older and you’re no longer considered a beginner. If you have had your driver’s license for three years, you will often receive the SF class 1/2 in the first classification in motor vehicle liability insurance, for which a contribution rate of around 70 percent is expected. Without experience or in the two years of his probation, the novice driver receives a classification in SF class 0 with a contribution rate of up to 260 percent in motor vehicle liability insurance. A comparison already reveals significant differences.
If you still want your own car, do not insure it yourself as a novice driver. Have your parents register it as a second car and register them as the driver. Then you benefit from their (hopefully) cheaper no-claims class and pay a lot less money. Then take over the car one day, take the cheap SF class with you. The disadvantage: Your parents lose their no-claims classes from this contract when they are taken over.
It is better if you take over the SF discounts from a close relative (this is also possible) who wants to give up his car anyway.
Some may shy away from such a final step. Alternatively, you can ask your grandfather, who no longer needs his car, if he can take out insurance for you. In this case, he does not give up his SF discounts completely.
It doesn’t have to be you who takes out the insurance: With this structure, your grandfather is then the policyholder and you the vehicle owner. That means you are responsible for the car. Tickets, for example, go to you – and not to your grandfather. You may not even have to transfer the insurance premium to your grandfather, because many insurance companies differentiate between the policyholder and the premium payer. Important: The commitment can be undone. If your grandfather changes his mind and wants to drive again, he will either have to take over his insurance again (bad for you) or take out a new one without his SF discounts (bad for him).
A motorcycle can also make car insurance cheaper for the car: You can save in other ways with the SF classes: You take them over from other vehicle classes – for example if you have had a motorcycle or scooter license for a long time. Both types of takeover can also be combined, for example if your parents deregister their previously insured motorcycle.
There are two limitations here:
Therefore, you should calculate beforehand whether this option is worthwhile for you.
Important to know: You can only take on as many SF classes as you could theoretically have acquired yourself. So if you have had your driver’s license for seven years, you can take a maximum of seven SF classes.
Another savings option is family insurance. You register your car with the same insurer as your parents. The insurer rewards you with a lower rate. However, not every insurance company offers such a policy.
You can also save money if you, as a novice driver, can prove that you will incur as few costs as possible for your insurance company. Most insurers consider “accompanied driving” from the age of 17 to be an indicator of this. Here, young people acquire their driver’s license a year earlier, but are only allowed to drive if accompanied until they come of age. Statistics show that such novice drivers build fewer accidents – and car insurance companies reward this with cheaper tariffs.
Incidentally, it doesn’t matter whether you were really accompanied when you drove, a driver’s license at the age of 17 is enough for a cheaper rate.
In order to show how high the savings through “accompanied driving” can actually be, FOCUS Online partner Verivox has examined three classic scenarios.
With and without “accompanied driving”, the insurance premium is lowest in scenario 1 and highest in scenario 2.
Tip: Participating in driver safety training also saves you premiums with many insurance companies – but you have to offset this against the costs of the training.
If these tricks don’t work for you, just trick the insurance company a little. Because novice drivers often tend towards very specific cars, such as a Fiat Punto or a VW Polo. Statistically, these small cars are involved in accidents more frequently and are therefore classified by car insurance companies in higher type classes, for which higher premiums apply. So avoid such cars as a novice driver and you pay less. You can find out which cars are in which type class on dieversicherer.de, the website of the German Insurance Association.
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