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 Statistics  about young motorists aren’t good. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 16-year-olds get into accidents nearly 6 times more often than drivers between the Age group of 30 and 59.  Theres no wonder  vehicle insurance premiums are so high for this age group.

Having said that, not all car insurance companies take the same dim view of young motorists. And many reductions are readily available to aid you cut costs. keep in mind, the greater the risk, the higher the expense of insurance premiums. Let this be your leading principle as you shop for your insurance.

Below are 10 suggestions to help reduce premiums and maintain your teenager’s license free of violations:

1. Help your teenager learn the laws and follow them to the letter. By far, the best way to lower automobile insurance prices for teens is for them to keep their driving record clean. Make safe driving a household project. In some states, restrictions apply to new young drivers. dad and mom ought to know what the laws are and insist that their sons and daughters follow them .

2. Set a good example. Do you  stick by the rules  ? Do you yell at other motorists when you’re driving your car? If you do those things, how can you expect your youngsters to act in a different way? Look at your own driving habits long before they get their license and you are going to have a much easier time convincing them to be safe drivers. Bear in mind, actions speak louder than words.

3. Put your teenager on your policy. Rather than setting up your teens own insurance policy  , put them on your auto insurance policy as an additional driver. In this way, all the reductions applied to your policies will be passed on to them.

4. Pay your teen to get good grades. Here’s a good idea — find out how much you save if your teenager gets a good grade point average and pass it on to them. usually, having a 3.0 or higher GPA will reduce your automobile insurance premium by  10%  . Figure out exactly how much this saves you and give that money to your teen.  This will accomplish two things. First, it gives a direct reward for academic performance. Secondly, it motivates them to continue on getting good grades.

5. Enroll them in driver education courses. Reductions are available for teenagers who take acknowledged driving classes. But call your vehicle insurance company to find out which schools are covered before having to pay big bucks.

6.  Stay away  of sports cars. Don’t try to live vicariously through your kids by providing them the hot car you couldn’t get in high school. Getting your teenager a safe car to drive, with the most recent safety equipment, will lower your costs. Not only will you save money on vehicle insurance, but fast driving will be less of a temptation.

7. Get their support. Don’t believe that your teen wants to vacuum clean yourwallet. Ask them for help cutting fees and point out that you will share in the savings (see rule #4). Tell them how much auto insurance costs and show them how this fits into the household finances. If nothing else, you will score points for treating them as grown ups.

8. Talk to your kids about drugs and alcohol . This is a tough subject to discuss with teens, who think they have everything under control. But the consequences of stating nothing can be catastrophic. Take the time to lay down some recommendations in this vital area.

9. Take traffic school to beat tickets. Once a ticket is on your teen’s license, it takes ages to get the violation taken off. Instead, encourage them to take traffic school if the judge will allow it. A day spent thinking about the consequences of unsafe driving can bring rewards for years to come.

10. Ride with your teen. Your teen was a safe driver last year when  they  got a license. But what’s happened since then? Let your  kids  take the wheel while you sit back and loosen up in the passenger seat. If you see them doing something that breaks rules or appears unsafe, point this out in a diplomatic way. If they are doing a good job driving, praise them for their efforts.

If you stick to the above strategies, you will find that you can make it through the teenage years easily — and without paying an arm and a leg for automobile insurance. It just takes cooperation and understanding from both sides of the generation gap.

At times a lot of personal car leasing companys will include Insurance as part of the deal, it is always best to check at the time of taking out your lease, always check the terms and conditions to confirm that Leasing offer covers teenage drivers

If you own a company it may be possible to get your teen on that policy but as above its always best to check that including individuals under a certian age can make your premiums a lot higher, along with business car leasing, you may get the insurance policy to cover the teenager, but the company lease may restict such a youthful driver 

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It’s the same old story. Businesses are constantly looking for new ways to save money by utilising the web and new technology, to the extent that it affects almost everything, including how we drive. Nowadays running a fleet is a complex business, taking into account the legislation to abide by and the administration involved, so many companies look at grey fleet as an easy cost saver.

But what is grey fleet?

A grey fleet is a fleet of cars used by the company but not owned by the company. Administration costs are cut, because running and maintenance is looked after by the car’s owner rather than having a separate department at the company to look after this. The owners are usually the employees themselves who are given either a lump sum or a monthly allowance to either contribute towards running costs, or to purchase a vehicle for themselves out right, on the understanding they are available to drive on behalf of the business.

So why have a grey fleet?

Fleets have become more expensive to run, and this is due to a change in the law. Government had been looking to cut road deaths by 40% come the year 2010. The change was quite simple in that in law, the car became a place of work, but this means that a raft of health and safety legislation now applies that didn’t before. It meant that the safety and well being of employees away whilst driving on business was still the responsibility of the business and to protect itself from liability this necessitated a lot more administration work.

It was only ever a matter of time before this happened though. In days gone by, driving between appointments wasn’t productive in any form, but modern communications technology has changed all that. Accessing documents over the internet, making changes and saving them so people back at the office can see them is nothing out of the ordinary, and although this still can’t be done while actually driving, phone calls and conference calls can.

Having to take into account employment law in respect of people out on the road means a company has an obligation to put procedures and policy in place to be compliant with that law. Then it all has to administered and enforced which requires more man hours. Clearly, all this increases the complexity and therefore the money needed to keep a fleet on the road.

For instance, on average, 80% of accidents are down to 20% of drivers, so in all likelihood, there are going to be a few drivers on each fleet identified as needing further training before being permitted to drive on company business.

Then there’s keeping on top of copies of all the paperwork, i.e. licences, MoT certificates, proof of business use insurance, and records of frequent safety checks to show the company is complying with the law.

And it’s worked: In 2009, there were more than 30m vehicles using Britain’s roads but only 2538 fatalities, down from nearly 6,000 in the early 90′s. Admittedly, some of this is down to the changes made in vehicle safety by the manufacturers, but where company fleets are concerned, vehicles are generally less than 3 years old and tend to be well maintained on lease contracts, plus safety checks are more stringent and carried out more often than a private vehicle would necessitate. Considering that in general, UK drivers are actually having more accidents than ever before, but far fewer fatal ones, it can be seen that the effect of legislation on fleets has had a major impact in helping reduce fatalities on UK roads.

Certainly, all of this just adds more to running and administering a fleet so companies look to make savings, by effectively outsourcing their fleets to their drivers. However, although some of the costs for vehicles, servicing etc. may have been partly off-loaded, the responsibility the company has towards its employees cannot be avoided. Also, in comparison with company fleet cars, the average age of a grey fleet vehicle is 5 years old, and many are serviced and maintained by local garages, rather than a dedicated dealership for that particular vehicle manufacturer. And as for safety, besides the annual MoT check, who knows how often fluids or tyres are checked by the owner? Although an employee may be using their own vehicle for business use, that responsibility cannot be outsourced. The company they work for still has a duty of care towards them, so even a grey fleet will need some form of management still.

Furthermore, whenever an accident happens that causes a fatality, the Police will always initiate an investigation, which is more than simply checking a driver’s licence details, their MoT, and whether they had proper business car insurance or not, but much more background to the accident, such as the initial state of the vehicle, and the driver’s previous history and experience. This would almost certainly lead to an audit of your driving policies and fleet activity, as that’s where a lot of this information will be available, so even with a grey fleet, the need is still there to show you are legally compliant with current health and safety requirements. And it’s not just fatal accidents that can trigger an audit; there are all sorts of other situations and accidents where it might be necessary to provide your risk management and training records.

It’s not all about costs though, as there are several sources of help. Many Human Resources consultancies can draw up plans for driving and fleet management policies, as can business advisory services. Fleet insurance companies themselves sometimes provide advice, especially as it is in their interests that a fleet is well run to reduce the chance of claims, some even going as far as offering free driver training, or larger discounts if there’s evidence of good management.

So, is it worth running a grey fleet? Ultimately it’s down to your own business circumstances, but it certainly pays to be aware of the wider issues and implications, otherwise it could cost you a lot more than you were counting on. As we have seen, running a grey fleet may seem more cost effective upon first glance, but there is much more to it. A business cannot simply off load it’s responsibility when it outsources it’s fleet, and provided it is monitored correctly, running a company owned fleet still has many advantages where much greater transparency, and therefore compliance, lies directly within the control of the business.

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Over the last decade, the issue of uninsured drivers has been looked into more and more by Government and the Police, in order to meet the requirements of the 4th EU motoring directive. The next step along the way is the introduction of “Continuous Insurance Enforcement”, but exactly what is this EU directive?

The EU has brought in this piece of legislation, to help citizens from different member states, claim on the insurance of another person who lives elsewhere in the EU. This is due to the fact that there are over 500,000 incidents between drivers of differing nationalities each year, and the process of dealing with a claim over 2 languages and 2 individual legal systems, would have been a very complex affair without it.

Each country has it’s own national database of all insured vehicles registered there. In the UK, this is known as the Motor Insurers Database (or MID for short). As strong links have been made between the use of uninsured vehicles and organised crime, the Government are more than happy to comply with the 4th directive as it falls in line with Government policy on reducing crime as well as the number of uninsured drivers on the road.

From time to time errors do occur, (as with any system), and any apparently “uninsured” vehicle is very likely to be stopped by a Police patrol in short order. At this point, the officer on the scene will request some form of proof that the vehicle is insured. If this occurs outside normal working hours and no supporting paperwork is available, it could lead to the car being removed from the road and kept by the Police until insurance is arranged, or correct paperwork provided. Until recently, only private car policies were recorded, so business use car insurance or fleet insurance policies could run into trouble, although that is now no longer the case.

C.I.E. -Continuous Insurance Enforcement

The Police are constantly finding new and innovative ways of enforcement, such as automatic number plate recognition cameras, although outside major roads and urban areas, this technology is still not very prevalent due to it’s expense.

Previously, an uninsured driver had to be caught in the act, but surely prevention is better than cure? Using information from the DVLA and the MID combined, it is possible to identify cars that are uninsured, and of those cars, the keepers of the one’s that are not declared off road are liable to prosecution, so they have to either insure them or SORN them.