Imagine a scenario in which anyone can jump in your car without you anxiously wondering: Are they insured? That’s what any driver car insurance promises – for a price. Find out why you might need it and how you can keep costs to a minimum.
Any driver car insurance is a type of insurance that lets almost anyone drive the vehicle, or vehicles, covered by the policy – with your permission. As long as drivers meet the minimum criteria required by the policy, you won’t need to supply their names, personal details or driving history to the insurer.
The downside is that, because insurers don’t know who will be at the wheel, they can’t tailor the premiums accordingly. So they tend to err on the side of assuming high-risk drivers might drive the car, and set the premiums accordingly high.
Your average car owner won’t need any driver car insurance. Most people will only let, at most, a handful of specific people drive their car. For this, there are more affordable ways to get cover.
You might look to take out an any driver car insurance policy if you run a business that owns lots of vehicles, which will be driven by multiple employees. For example, if you own a company that uses delivery vehicles, you can save time and hassle by using this type of policy rather than covering every individual driver. It can be especially handy if you are rapidly growing your pool of drivers, or have a high staff turnover, as you won’t need to worry about specifically insuring each new employee.
Driving schools will often use an any driver policy for the sake of efficiency too.
Putting the lie to the name, some insurers might place restrictions on who can drive under an any driver policy.
The most common exclusion you might come across is age. Some policies might only cover those aged over 21, or even over 25, for example. This is because younger, novice drivers are statistically more likely to have an accident and make a claim.
It’s not a blanket rule, though. Driving schools might struggle to get cover for their 17-year-old learner drivers if it was.
Many insurers won’t let anyone under 25 be covered on an any driver policy, so it (almost) goes without saying in many instances they can’t take out the policy either.
| Response | Yorkshire and the Humber | West Midlands | Wales | South West | South East | Scotland | Northern Ireland | North West | North East | Greater London | East of England | East Midlands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 25.88% | 42.61% | 43.94% | 40.58% | 43.71% | 39.47% | 29.17% | 42.15% | 26.19% | 33.33% | 51.72% | 29.55% |
| I already have someone else named on my car insurance | 23.53% | 14.78% | 24.24% | 14.49% | 15.89% | 25% | 12.5% | 13.22% | 21.43% | 3.7% | 16.09% | 21.59% |
| No | 20% | 20% | 12.12% | 20.29% | 13.25% | 13.16% | 25% | 22.31% | 21.43% | 35.19% | 14.94% | 23.86% |
Let’s just say you should take a few deep breaths before getting a quote. Any driver car insurance is far more expensive than having either insurance just for yourself, or even adding named drivers to your policy.
And the more vehicles you want the insurance to cover, the higher the costs will be.
One of the main things that affects the price of regular car insurance is the risk profile of the driver. This doesn’t apply in quite the same way for any driver insurance, as the insurer won’t know the risk profiles of the potential drivers.
What can still affect the premium you’ll pay includes:
While an any driver policy might be ideal if you have a fleet of cars and drivers, there are more practical solutions for most people that want to let others drive their car.
Named driver insurance lets you add (typically) up to 5 additional drivers to your main car insurance policy. Perhaps your son or daughter needs to use your car during university holidays, or your partner needs to borrow it from time to time. Whoever you add as a named driver will get the same level of cover as you.
For most people, adding named drivers will be a far cheaper option than taking out an any driver insurance policy. You can add named drivers when you take out the policy, or part way through the term. There might be an administration fee for the latter.
You will need to give your insurer relevant details for the named drivers, including things like age and driving history, so they can adjust the premium accordingly. And, unlike any driver insurance, only the drivers specifically named on the policy will be insured to drive your car.
Importantly, though, you cannot add someone as a named driver if they will drive the car more than you. The main person named on the policy must drive the car the most. If not, you could be found guilty of a form of insurance fraud known as “fronting“.
If it doesn’t make sense to add someone as a named driver, perhaps because they will only be driving your car for a very short period or it’s prohibitively expensive to add them to your annual policy, temporary car insurance could be an option. With this, they take out their own, short-term insurance specifically for the time(s) that they will use your car, anything from a few hours to a few weeks.
Per-day, it will probably cost more than adding them as a named driver, but because they will only be charged for the periods they use the car it may well be cheaper overall. It could be a good call if you want a friend to share the driving on a road trip, say.
Not necessarily, it depends on the named driver in question. If a low-risk driver adds a higher-risk driver, a parent adding a newly-qualified son or daughter, for example, their premium may rise substantially to take account of the additional risk.
However, if a higher-risk driver adds a lower-risk driver as a named driver, it could even reduce the premium. That’s because the insurer will assume that the lower-risk (and theoretically safer) named driver will be driving the car at least some of the time.
Any driver car insurance can be the most straightforward way to cover multiple drivers on a vehicle, especially if you’re not sure when you take out cover exactly who will be driving it. This can make it a good bet for businesses with a fleet of vehicles and a pool of drivers. But it will cost you a pretty penny, and is likely to be overkill for most individuals. If you only need a small number of friends or family members to be able to drive your car, consider named driver insurance or temporary car insurance instead.
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