Parents naming adult children as additional driver

As the recession exerts its grip on young people, parents are finding that not only do their adult children have trouble being able to afford to move out of the family home but they are also finding it difficult to keep a car on the road.

The solution to the latter problem appears to lie with parents naming their offspring as an additional driver on their policy. According to recent research by uSwitch.com, the average age of a “child” on a parent’s policy has risen from 25 to 31 in just a year. 10 million of us have an additional driver on our policy and a quarter of these are our sons and daughters.

There is of course nothing wrong with this, provided the child is a genuine second driver. However, many families are falling foul of the law by indulging in the practice of “fronting”. This occurs where the young driver has a car registered in their own name which they drive, but the insurance company is told that the car is the parent’s and that the young driver is just a subsidiary driver. This amounts to fraud and insurers take a serious view of the matter.

Fronting and other types of insurance fraud cost the industry almost 2 billion a year and it is the innocent driver who ends up paying, to the tune of around £44 a year each.

Some young drivers are so desperate to keep their car on the road, despite being unable to afford the bills, that they drive uninsured, another practice which could result in dire consequences.

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