Since the Duke of Edinburgh’s crash at the beginning of this year, questions were raised about whether older drivers should even be behind the wheel. There are concerns about their eyesight, hearing and reflexes, which – let’s be honest – do diminish as we get older.
Younger drivers have received just as much skepticism about their skills behind the wheel. It’s not their quick reflexes that are the concern so much as their impulsivity and potential for recklessness.
According to price comparison platform Uswitch, young motorists are far more likely to be involved in accidents than drivers over the age of 25 and the insurance premiums are calculated to reflect this risk.
Younger drivers do find it hard to get into an insurer’s good books (pun intended) and data shows that young motorists under the age of 25 pay an average of £1,544.
But recently one provider has launched a product that’s set to make applying for insurance easier on younger drivers. Not only that, it’s offering cover to those that are still learning to drive.
Last month, Marmalade announced that it partnered with Ageas which will underwrite its car sharing solutions. This means that it now provides learner driver insurance and student driver insurance (which covers university and boarding school students that only drive occasionally).
What’s more, it provides named young driver insurance, which boasts telematics that only activates once the young driver is behind a wheel. So, it’s effectively offering ‘pay as you go’ insurance options to young drivers as and when they need it.
Young drivers, with all the potential risks they pose, may not be the most ideal type of clients, but with 7% of all full car driving license holders in Great Britain consisting of those aged between 17 and 24 they should hardly be ignored.
They will, after all, age (just like the rest of us) and once they have the buying power of those aged 30 – 50 they may recall which providers tried to help them in their youth as they tried to navigate university and the financial services abyss with all its terms, conditions and other trappings that come with it.
But if you’re considering catering to the younger members of our society, what is it that would attract them to your services in the first place? Here are just a few things that could appeal:
Technology:From Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, millennials are immersed in social media and all the advantages it brings. They grew up with it and they like to engage with it. If you don’t have a social media presence, it’s important to create one.
Access and instant interaction:Gone are the days when the youth turned to their parents to ask a question. Why do this when Alexa can do this for you? Having instant access to information is guaranteed to result in certain expectations and these, no doubt, will be levelled at the businesses they interact with too. If you can’t answer a simple question at the time when they desire an answer why would they stick with your business?
Flexibility: As it’s so easy to chat and socialise millennials have naturally gravitated towards remote employment situations. The ‘gig economy’ is getting bigger and gone are the days where people just stayed loyal to one place or one job. Recruiters and companies are gradually cottoning on to this idea and it’s no longer a surprise to learn that people hold down more than one job.
The need for flexibility is no doubt going to translate through to what the youth are going to want from a service. If they’re only going to be driving to do deliveries on the weekend – why would they go with a provider that only offers insurance to cover them for an entire month regardless of whether they drive or not?
Younger drivers are not the most ideal clientele – the statistics show that. But they are a savvy bunch and shouldn’t be ignored because, one day, these statistics will no longer matter – particularly when we have the technology to build driverless cars.
If you’re not sure how to ‘talk’ the younger generation, why not contact us to see how we can help you out?
