Driving, Insurance and Young Players: What Parents Need to Know 

Would you risk your child’s football career for a slightly cheaper car insurance quote? 🤔

It’s an exciting step towards independence. But for young footballers, in particular male drivers, there’s an important detail that often gets overlooked when it comes to car insurance.

 Once a player signs a scholarship and begins receiving a salary from their club, insurers no longer view them as a typical 17–18-year-old driver. In many cases, they’re classified as a professional athlete and that changes the insurance landscape quite a bit. 

We spoke to Geoff Derham at All Sport Insurance, who specialises in insurance for professional athletes, and he was able to share situations families have faced when insurance hasn’t quite been what they thought it was. 

The aim isn’t to scare anyone but it’s important that parents and guardians understand the risks before making decisions about the type of insurance their child buys, or they buy for them. 

Why it’s different for young players 

Professional sport is often treated by insurers as a higher-risk occupation, which means: 

• Many standard online policies don’t properly cover professional athletes 
• The number of insurers willing to offer cover is extremely limited until they are 19 
• Premiums and excesses can be much higher than expected 

Part of the reason is that insurers aren’t just thinking about the car. If a young player is driving teammates to training or matches, there may be several academy players travelling together which increases the insurer’s potential risk. 

It’s also worth remembering that journeys to training sessions, matches or club commitments may count as work-related travel. In many cases, this means the policy needs the correct level of cover (often referred to as business use). Without it, insurers may argue that the journey itself wasn’t covered. 

It’s not unusual for premiums to feel eye-wateringly high compared to what friends outside football might be paying. And we’re not talking about high performance cars either. 

The temptation of the “cheap” option 

When costs are that high, it’s completely understandable that families start looking for alternatives. Social media, messaging apps and word-of-mouth recommendations can promise much cheaper insurance deals. 

This is where problems often start. 

Some policies simply aren’t designed to cover professional athletes. Others may involve ghost brokers, people selling fake or manipulated policies that appear legitimate but provide little or no protection. And unfortunately, the consequences only become clear when something goes wrong. 

The stories you don’t hear 

Through their work with athletes, All Sport Insurance have seen a number of situations that families often don’t hear about, mainly because people are understandably embarrassed when things go wrong. 

• One professional footballer purchased a policy online and listed a general occupation rather than declaring their playing contract. After an accident, the insurer paid for the damage to the other vehicle but refused to cover repairs to the player’s own car, leaving them with an £18,000 repair bill. 

• In another case, a young female professional player bought a policy through someone advertising on social media. The “broker” took £4,000 for the policy  but it later turned out to be fake. She was left uninsured and facing legal penalties. 

We have also heard of a case in our community where;

• A parent was listed as the main driver on a leased car, with the player as a named driver, to reduce the premium. After the car was written off, the insurer checked the sat nav data and found the journeys were only between home and the training ground with no evidence the parent had been using the vehicle. The claim was rejected, leaving the family responsible for the cost of the lease car. 

Because excess levels for young professional athletes can be extremely high, some families choose to pay for repairs privately rather than claim. From the outside you might just see the car back on the road and assume their cheap policy paid out, but behind the scenes it may have been a parent quietly covering the repair bill to avoid triggering a large excess or future premium increases or managing a void policy. 

It’s not just about your child in the car 

Another factor parents often overlook is that academy players rarely travel alone. Players are constantly sharing lifts. Clubs often encourage it, and teammates naturally end up travelling together to training, matches, education programmes and recovery sessions. 

That raises some important questions for parents: 

• If your child is driving teammates, is the insurance policy set up properly to allow it? 
• If your child is getting into someone else’s car, are you confident that driver is properly insured? 
• Would you feel comfortable if you knew the policy might not be valid? 

If there were an accident and the policy turned out to be invalid, the consequences could go far beyond vehicle damage. Issues around injury, loss of earnings, or legal claims involving other players could create enormous financial and emotional pressure for everyone involved. It’s not a situation any family wants to find themselves in. 

When things go wrong, the impact can be bigger than people realise 

 

A simple way to think about it 

We would never knowingly let our children get into a car without a seatbelt for protection. Yet when it comes to insurance, we are not always showing the same concern for their protection. 

For some families, it’s an honest mistake, they assume the policy is fine and don’t realise that being on a scholarship and earning a salary changes the rules. But in other cases, parents or players knowingly declare the wrong occupation to reduce premiums. It may feel like a clever shortcut, but it’s a gamble with very real consequences. 

Insurance, like a seatbelt, only matters when something goes wrong. And when it fails, the impact can be financial, legal, and emotional, affecting not just the player, but teammates and the whole family. 

A limited market but it does improve 

The good news is that things do get easier over time. As players get older and build driving experience, the range of insurers available tends to increase. 

But during the scholarship years, the market for professional athletes under 19 is very small. High premiums and high excess levels are, unfortunately, part of the reality. 

That’s why it’s important to work with insurers or brokers who understand the specific needs of young athletes, rather than relying solely on comparison websites designed for the general public. 

A few simple steps that can help 

If your child is approaching driving age while in a scholarship or post-16 programme, it’s worth keeping a few principles in mind: 

• Always declare their occupation accurately when arranging insurance 
• Check whether journeys to training or games require business use cover 
• Be cautious about deals offered through social media or messaging apps 
• Use insurers or brokers who understand professional athletes 
• Keep records of your policy and any communication 

Most importantly, take the time to ask questions if something looks unusually cheap. With insurance, if a price feels too good to be true, it often is. 

A final thought for parents 

We know that the financial pressures on families in football can be significant, and insurance costs for young players don’t make things any easier. 

But making sure your child is properly insured isn’t just about protecting a car. It’s about protecting them, their teammates, and your family from potentially serious financial consequences, which naturally impacts on wellbeing. 

A little extra care at the start can prevent a very expensive lesson later on. 

For more insights on the business side of football that young players and parents need to know, head over to our Industry Insights series for more on insurance, tax, contracts and investments. Whether your child is a young scholar or earning a small wage as a young professional, don’t over look this important information, and help set your child up right with good business habits from the start.

There’s a lot to navigate as parent or guardian the longer your child continues to develop within the football industry. We don’t want unnecessary things to derail them. Don’t feel you have to go through this journey alone. Join our community to get the support you need, whether it is access to our discussion forums, attending and event or workshop, or having some dedicated 1-to-1 time on a parent support call.