Au pair / au-pair / aupair, car isnurance, driving

[SimoneA]

Hello. Does anyone have experience/knowledge around the circumstances of insuring au pairs on car insurance policy? We currently have a 20 year au pair from Germany (EU drivers licence) who had been with us since September 2016. To add her to our policy Admiral are quoting over ?4,000 for 10 months (ca. ?5,000 /12 months)! That is just insane!! Other insurers just wont insure anyone with an EU drivers licence.

The quote didn't change with Admiral when we used the scenario that she had a British licence. They couldn't say what made the price so ludicrous. On mumsnet there is an old thread (2008) saying that the age is what matters. If they are 21 or 22 and over the cost comes down a lot. I read somewhere else that if she was resident in the UK for 1 year or more then this would bring the price down.

This is our first au pair and it's all new to us. She is moving back to Germany in 2 months to start studying medicine. As such we'll be looking for a new au pair, in which case we would like to ensure we find someone who we can insure without it costing a mini fortune. From Sept onwards she will need to use the car for the school run.

If anyone has already been through this and knows what the situation is to insure them at a normal cost, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance. Simone

[Mellors]

Hi

I have ben insuring au pairs on my car insurance for the last few years.

Admiral are the only ones that have worked for us.

They basically need to be 23+ or its astronomical - mine still went up by over ?1000 and my current au pair is an experienced driver.

[flocker spotter]

We used to only recruit au pairs over 21 because younger than that was stupidly expensive to insure. We used to insure through the AA and have the au pairs do the AA driver plus course (6 lessons) first.

[SimoneA]

Hello both.

Thanks very much for your very helpful replies and tips. Sorry for my very late reply. I'm pregnant and suffering from hypermesis.

We're actually struggling to find an au pair at the moment, as well as others that we know. There has been a 40% drop in au pair applications for London/UK this year.

Thanks again.

[flocker spotter]

Wow, a 40% drop in aupair applications - that's Brexit for you! How did you get this statistic BTW? Just interested as we always got scores more applications on aupair world when we wrote x from London as our name rather than just our surname, as the website did not have a facility to search for the capital. Do you know if this drop is reflected across the country? Well at least it will cut out the economic migrant aupairs - those that choose to use a family as a stepping stone to a better paid job or those that are here purely to earn and are not interested in the cultural aspect of the exchange. We suffered twice from au pairs who gave all the assurances that they would be here for the year and then jumped ship after a few months because they had got a better paid job. So hopefuly, you will have a better if smaller selection to choose from.