Sorting out insurance policies is nobody’s favourite thing to do: even if it’s your job you can often feel like it’s a complete pain in the neck. Yet, if we are making the step to own a car, we are obliged to fork out a little extra time and money to make sure that such a luxury possession is covered when it comes to unforeseen accidents and breakdown. If you are a new driver, or a driver who has only recently passed and is accustomed to simply being a named driver on a parent’s car, the move into owning your own car, and thus starting your own policy, can be intimidating and costly. Whilst most insurance companies have plenty of times for drivers with no-claims records on their owned car, named drivers with an equally clean record are often overlooked, because they are not the legal owner of the vehicle in question. But if you do a bit of research, you could be rewarded for taking out a car insurance policy that belongs to you. The Co-operative is one of the few insurance companies which offers up to 65% no claims discounts for drivers making the switch from named driver status to full ownership. The discount is based on the number of years which the driver has totted up without making a claim: in this instance, the company offers a NCD (No Claims Discount) which accounts for up to 3 years without claims, paying dividends of up to the aforementioned 65%. The advantage of this is that what you pay is based on your own personal driving history, not the driving history of the car you may have previously been named as a driver on. This means you don’t get charged for mistakes made by other drivers of your previous car: so even if your younger brother accidentally scraped another car whilst parallel parking, or your dad had a contretemps in the lanes, if you have avoided incident, it will reflect in the amount of insurance you have to pay. And with the rest of living looking to rise again in terms of costs, it might serve to reduce your payments in other areas…