Insuring young drivers/workers to drive farm vehicles.

Yale

Member
Livestock Farmer
What are others doing?

Our eldest is a year off driving however some of her older friends will be taking their test and hoping to drive the farm pick up etc. as part of working on the home farm.

If you look at the prices to insure the likes of a 17 year old on a pick up say the prices seem to be astronomical,like £5-10k a year.

What are people doing or are they just not driving these vehicles on the road or simply not having insurance?:nailbiting:
 
Location
southwest
Never had a problem with insuring a "works" vehicle to be driven by an employee of any age

But if the Insurance company think you're trying to pull a fast one saying the daughter's Golf GTI is just used to go to the local mart once a week...............
 
Same thing here,NFU agent said get a car well before they are going to be driving,not buy it the same week🙄 and insure it as a farm runabout. When the time comes add the youngster as an "occasional driver". I'm currently zooming round in a 1.2 Corsa to pick up bits and pieces.
 

dudders

Member
Location
East Sussex
Our eldest is a year off driving however some of her older friends will be taking their test and hoping to drive the farm pick up etc. as part of working on the home farm.

I've not had kids, but I wouldn't let a youngster loose on the farm in any vehicle at all, even a quad, without some very hefty training/qualification. It's not just that they don't have enough experience to develop a 'feel' for the thing, but that at their age they are programmed to be reckless. In the papers recently was the case of a 15-year-old girl driving a SxS quad. She knew how to drive it alright, but with a friend beside her, she had to show off, making sudden severe turns. Rolled it and got trapped, fatally. Probably trapped under the roll-cage, ironically.

I'm not saying don't let them do it, only make sure of very comprehensive training, and take the keys away at the first sign of larking about.
 

Flatlander

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lorette Manitoba
I've not had kids, but I wouldn't let a youngster loose on the farm in any vehicle at all, even a quad, without some very hefty training/qualification. It's not just that they don't have enough experience to develop a 'feel' for the thing, but that at their age they are programmed to be reckless. In the papers recently was the case of a 15-year-old girl driving a SxS quad. She knew how to drive it alright, but with a friend beside her, she had to show off, making sudden severe turns. Rolled it and got trapped, fatally. Probably trapped under the roll-cage, ironically.

I'm not saying don't let them do it, only make sure of very comprehensive training, and take the keys away at the first sign of larking about.
All the training in the world doesn’t take the stupid out of most youngsters. We were all young once and had our share of incidents. Better to start teaching them earlier so they actually have experience by the time they hit the road
usually when friends get involved the stakes raise in the stupidity department. There is no right or wrong way to it but I was driving tractors from a very young age along side dad and have started doing the same with my brats. Wife isn’t on the same page but I see no wrong with them knowing how things work and the dangers of not using them correctly.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Our policy insures all vehicles fully, just the excess is hiked for under 25s.

It's through FMG which is a farmer's mutual, your/our situation really isn't that unique in that alot of under 25's that get early immersion in farming are actually quite good operators and so there's no valid reason to jack premiums, raising the excess from $300 to $1000 seems much more fair.

I was driving and riding and earthmoving before I learnt fear itself, and the benefit is that I can respond without fear/panic as an adult when things go south, it's saved many accidents from happening
 

puntabrava

Member
Location
Wiltshire
The NFU added an 18 year old onto an artic lorry policy about 5 years ago for £80, since then they have had a change about as every year the additional drivers have risen, up to this year a 25 year old with three points they wanted another £1500
 

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
It costs us £30/year extra to keep our policy as any driver 17 and over. Don't agree with the idea that youngsters are all reckless at that age, I know more that are extremely steady and almost annoyingly slow.... Yes that's better than hairing around like a loon, but if they are like that then they wont be back.
 

Nav man

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
gloucestershire
Something else to consider that our insurance provider warned us about this year is that even though we have farm vehicles for any driver this is for clean licences only. If employee has any points this must be disclosed ASAP. Not sure if this is for all providers but something we had never considered before. We have been advised to make sure employees are aware of their obligation to notify employer if they receive any endorsements on their licence and the consequences of failing to declare them.
 

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
I've not had kids, but I wouldn't let a youngster loose on the farm in any vehicle at all, even a quad, without some very hefty training/qualification. It's not just that they don't have enough experience to develop a 'feel' for the thing, but that at their age they are programmed to be reckless. In the papers recently was the case of a 15-year-old girl driving a SxS quad. She knew how to drive it alright, but with a friend beside her, she had to show off, making sudden severe turns. Rolled it and got trapped, fatally. Probably trapped under the roll-cage, ironically.

I'm not saying don't let them do it, only make sure of very comprehensive training, and take the keys away at the first sign of larking about.
The poster is talking about highway driving, presumably trained and tested.
 

Boysground

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
I started my kids on their own insurance (paid by me also 2 £800 cars) so that they build some no claims discount, still NFU here. When my son did some summer work here I then asked about putting him on one of the farm trucks, it was cheaper to have him as a named driver on my fleet insurance. So the fleet is anyone over 25 and Bg junior. He’s just 24 so only a year to go.

Bg
 

Daddy Pig

Member
Location
dorset
All the training in the world doesn’t take the stupid out of most youngsters. We were all young once and had our share of incidents. Better to start teaching them earlier so they actually have experience by the time they hit the road
usually when friends get involved the stakes raise in the stupidity department. There is no right or wrong way to it but I was driving tractors from a very young age along side dad and have started doing the same with my brats. Wife isn’t on the same page but I see no wrong with them knowing how things work and the dangers of not using them correctly.
got a corsa for my lad yesterday, he's 12 for £250 will be a grasstrack race car come springtime.
 
Daughter was 17 in March, did her theory soon after, but couldn't get a practical test till September. Was a named driver on my 2011 Ford ranger as a learner, and also on her own car. Passed her test in September and i informed the NFU she had passed and expected a large hike on the pickup. No same price £600 Ish fully comp, i was very surprised.
Her own car a 1.2 petrol polo is just a smidge over £1k in her name, but has a black box and 4 adults as named drivers on the policy, can't remember the company but off a comparison website.
 

Fendt516profi

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Yorkshire
Daughter was 17 in March, did her theory soon after, but couldn't get a practical test till September. Was a named driver on my 2011 Ford ranger as a learner, and also on her own car. Passed her test in September and i informed the NFU she had passed and expected a large hike on the pickup. No same price £600 Ish fully comp, i was very surprised.
Her own car a 1.2 petrol polo is just a smidge over £1k in her name, but has a black box and 4 adults as named drivers on the policy, can't remember the company but off a comparison website.
Do you need all the named drivers on hers, when I was first getting insurance I tried the older named driver then asked what if I didn't put a named driver and they said it would be cheaper as less risk
 

TheTallGuy

Member
Location
Cambridgeshire
Do you need all the named drivers on hers, when I was first getting insurance I tried the older named driver then asked what if I didn't put a named driver and they said it would be cheaper as less risk
Different insurers use different parameters in their calculations, but for a given mileage having experienced drivers should reduce the overall risk profile because the assumption will be that a certain percentage of estimated mileage will be undertaken by the experienced driver. 5000 miles at 100% risk rating compared to an assumed 4000 miles at 100% and 1000 miles at 20% yields different results. If the insurance company are aware that the named driver is only being put on in order to try and get cheaper insurance & that there's no intention for them to drive the vehicle then they may decide to maintain the higher risk rating for the total mileage.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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