Who is occasional driver insurance for?

Reducing the cost of motoring is important to many Canadians, and occasional driver insurance can help all sorts of people to lower their expenditure.

The great thing about an occasional driver insurance policy is that it tends to cost much less than blanket insurance. If you drive to and from your place of work five days a week, then it is unlikely that occasional coverage will be of any use to you.

Likewise, people who drive for a living, such as delivery operatives and taxi drivers, are not going to find any cost reduction with occasional driver insurance. If your car is only used occasionally by a family member or a friend - perhaps for a trip to the shops - then a short-term policy for an additional driver can be more appropriate.

According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, occasional drivers are added to conventional policies after the named principal driver, which means that the named persons are allowed to legally drive the car, too. This can lead to cost savings, especially if the individuals in question are relatively young and likely to pay higher premiums, as a result.

For families who own one car but have multiple drivers, occasional driver insurance can be a good way of reducing the annual motoring bill, however other options like short-term insurance can also help if someone is going to use your car as a one-off. When someone will drive your car under your policy on more than a few occasions in the course of a year, adding them as an occasional driver tends to make more sense. Occasional driver insurance tends to be most appropriate for second and third family vehicles which are usually more shared than other types of vehicle.

By opting for occasional driver insurance, you are telling the insurance company that some of the named drivers on the policy are not on the road often and subsequently represent a lower risk. Therefore, insurance of this type will cost less compared with a regular policy. However, all the other factors that go into costing a driver's premium still come into play. Things such as the age of the drivers, your home location and the value of the vehicle all still count, so the amount that can be saved varies depending on the individual.