What’s The Best Way to Add Someone to Your Car Insurance Temporarily?

No matter how short the journey you’re planning, you need car insurance. It’s a legal requirement whenever you get behind the wheel, whether you’re nipping out for 5 minutes or half an hour. Similarly, it’s your responsibility to ensure that whoever you allow to borrow your car is properly insured to drive it. 

There are two main ways to add an additional driver: adding a ‘named driver’ to your annual insurance policy or purchasing temporary car insurance. The best way to add a temporary driver to your car insurance depends entirely on your needs. We’ve put together a guide to cover the pros and cons of adding a named driver or making use of temporary insurance to allow someone else to drive your car, so you can feel confident that you’re fully covered, whichever you choose.

How to Add a Temporary Driver to Your Car Insurance?

We’ve run through both options in more detail below.

Use Temporary Car Insurance for an Additional Driver:

Using temporary insurance to cover someone else to drive your car is a fast, affordable and easy way to meet the UK’s legal requirement that every driver is insured. 

Temporary or short-term car insurance offers full, comprehensive cover for a limited period. This means that rather than paying to manually add a named driver to your existing policy and putting your no-claims at risk (more on this shortly), you can simply insure someone for the exact period they need the car. 

Temporary cover is perfect for:

• Borrowing a car from a partner, friend or family member for a few days, instead of paying for an MTA.
• Sharing the driving if you’re planning a long journey – temporary cover allows you to share the load without altering your annual policy.
• A learner in need of driving practice before their test – short-term insurance is the best way to insure a learner driver, and it’s usually far cheaper than adding a learner as a named driver.
• Periodic driving – if the person borrowing your car doesn’t need it regularly, adding them to your annual policy can be costly. 
• Driving a new car home – AKA drive-away insurance, which allows you to get the car home legally and safely before you commit to an annual policy.
• Business use – if you need to use your personal vehicle for work but your existing policy doesn’t cover the car for business use, a temporary business policy can be super useful.

Generally, if the person borrowing your car only requires it sporadically or for short periods of time, there’s little point in adding them as a named driver to your annual policy – which requires you to pay for their cover for the duration of the policy.

GoShorty specialises in short-term cover, for as little as one hour up to 28 days – it’s that flexible. Our temporary insurance is in effect from the moment payment is made and will provide the driver with complete, comprehensive cover for the period purchased. Whether someone needs to borrow your car, or you need to drive someone else’s car, it takes less than 2 minutes to buy temporary cover to do so.

Don’t Be Tempted by ‘Fronting’

Do bear in mind that as with all information you supply to your insurance provider, you need to be honest – listing the car’s main driver and the named driver accurately, even if you think it would be cheaper to swap them. To list the more experienced driver as the vehicle’s main driver, and the less experienced driver as the named driver, in order to avoid paying a higher premium is known as ‘fronting’ – a kind of insurance fraud which is illegal, automatically invalidates your policy, and carries serious penalties.

How to add someone to your car insurance as a named driver is simple. Just contact your provider to make a mid-term adjustment (MTA) to your policy. Share the details of the additional driver you wish to add to your existing car insurance policy, making sure to mention any convictions and claims. The cost of adding a named driver will depend on who the new driver is, their relationship to you (the main driver), and whether their criteria is considered high risk. If you choose to add a learner driver or a young, newly qualified driver, this will cost more than adding a person who has been driving for a longer period without an accident.

The Best Way to Add a Temporary Driver to Your Insurance

If the person you’re allowing to borrow your car is someone you trust entirely, who will need to use the vehicle frequently, adding them as a named driver makes sense. That said, typically temporary car insurance is the best way to add a temporary driver to your insurance, in that you won’t have to pay for an MTA to amend your existing policy, your no-claims discount will be protected, and the driver will be covered for the exact duration they require.

How Much Does it Cost to Add Someone to Your Insurance?

If you do decide to add a named driver to your insurance policy, you may see your premium change dramatically, depending on the risk associated with the driver you’re adding. For instance, if you’re adding a newly qualified, young, male driver, you’ll typically see an increase in the cost of your insurance, as this cohort are more inexperienced, likely to be involved in road accidents (according to statistics), tend to have more motoring convictions, and frequently make expensive insurance claims. Conversely, adding an experienced, older, female driver with a spotless driving record to your policy could lower your premium. 

If the person borrowing your car uses temporary cover, your premium won’t change and your no-claims discount won’t be impacted. Our temporary cover begins from as little as £16.98 for one hour, making it a super affordable option for those looking to borrow a car. If in doubt: choose temporary cover.