How Much Do Additional Miles Cost?

As a young driver, you may well be a first time driver and, like many first time drivers, you might struggle to correctly predict how many miles you will need for the duration of your Young Driver insurance policy. If you are reading this FAQ then there’s a good chance you might be running out of miles on your Think Insurance Young Driver policy, or you are researching into a Black Box insurance policy and are unsure of how many miles you may need. Either way, if you look like you’re going to run out of miles before the end of your policy, then you can buy more miles at any time. 

However, to avoid having to purchase additional miles for your Young Driver insurance policy, there are a few things you can do to help accurately predict how many miles you will need for the duration of cover. We do however understand that personal and professional circumstances can change which is why we allow you to increase the mileage allowance on your Telematics insurance policy at any point.

How Many Miles Will I Need On A Young Driver Insurance Policy?

The amount of miles you may need can depend on several factors, namely what you plan on using your car for, and where you live in relation to where you go to school, socialise or work.

Young Driver Insurance With Social Use Only – If your policy has Social, Domestic & Pleasure use only, then the amount of miles you will need to purchase should be relatively low compared to some of the other types of usage. However if you live in a rural area you may find that you use more miles on Social use than someone living in a town or city will. You may also be planning to undertake long journeys, going on domestic based road trips (not outside of the UK) using your car, and again this may mean using more miles than you might think you need.

Young Driver Insurance With Commuting Use – With this level of use you may be using your car to get to and from a place of work or a place of higher education, or you may even use it to do both! Commuting use is in addition to Social use, so you should expect to be doing more miles because of this. For Commuting use it’s a little easier to figure out how many miles you will be doing by looking at the distances between where you are commuting to and from. Remember you will need a little bit of a leeway in case your route changes due to roadworks, or something else happens that causes you to do more miles.

Young Driver Insurance With Business Use – Business use can mean a lot more miles as you could be using your car to help you do your job, possibly every day. This type of use can often be quite hard to predict the mileage for, however your employer may be able to help you work out what your annual mileage may be, which would give you a good starting point.

Learn To Cut Down Your Miles

If you are approaching your pre-agreed limit you may need to look at how you are using your car. For some uses it might not be so easy, especially if you have Business use. For others like Social and Commuting you may find it easier to adjust the amount of journeys you are doing. For example, if you are commuting every day to somewhere, is there someone you can car share with? 

On a Telematics insurance policy with Social use only, are there journeys you can cut out, such as unnecessary trips to the local shop? Remember all the little journeys you take, do add up.

How Will I Know If I Need To Buy More Miles?

As part of the terms of your Young Driver insurance policy with Think you will be able to login to your Young Driver portal, which means you can see how many miles you have left on your policy at any point. We will also notify you if you are getting close to your limit and can advise you on the appropriate action.

How Much Will I Need To Pay For More Miles?

There will be a small administrative cost for changing your policy, but the actual cost of the miles will vary depending on how many you actually need, and also what your Driving Performance Score has been up to that point. So for someone who has six months left on their policy and are already in need of more miles, they are likely to need to purchase a lot more miles than someone with two months left, and therefore the quotation price will likely be greater. Also, someone with a low Driving Performance Score will pay more for the same amount of additional miles than someone who has a higher score, but all other circumstances are the same. 

If you would like more information on Black Box Mileage, you may find the answer in our Young Driver FAQ section, or alternatively you can speak to a member of our specialist Young Driver insurance team by calling 0800 221 8077.

To get a quote you can also ring the number above, or alternatively you can click ‘Get a Quote’ below and a member of our team will be in contact.