And both charges are way above the average £595 for a fully comprehensive policy.Unfortunately, this is down to the statistical likelihood of young drivers being involved in a crash – and the consequent greater cost to the insurer. Motorists between the ages of 17 and 21 are involved in a quarter of all road accidents yet represent only one in six British drivers, the AA has found.This leaves teenagers – and usually their parents – in a financial dilemma.Although putting your son on your insurance as a named driver is expensive, it is at least more affordable than if he pays for his own. Your son could apply for the “pay-as-you-drive” scheme run by Norwich Union.This, as the name implies, will mean he is charged only when he is behind the wheel. But it won’t give him the chance to build up “no claims” bonuses to reduce his own premiums.However, there are other ways to keep a lid on costs.

As you’ve discovered, the price of your son hitting the road is high.Recent research by the AA found that a 17-year-old boy could expect to pay an annual premium of £4,521, nearly £1,500 more than for a girl of the same age. Our 18-year-old son has just passed his driving test; great news for him but not so great for us, since we’re now expected to pay for his car insurance on a four-year-old Renault Clio.
We’ve tried different companies but nothing has come in under £1,500 – a huge sum. I’ve looked into letting him drive my car instead and putting him on my insurance, but it would still mean trebling my own £320 premium.Is there a way round this? I don’t want to have to borrow money for him to drive PH, BrightonA. You can barely move these days for ads blazing low-cost offers on car cover.

But the road suddenly empties if you’re looking for cheap deals for teenagers. After that, they are only entitled to the £106 payment for 20 weeks although some companies offer more.While new mothers have the right to take an additional 26 weeks of leave, few use up the full entitlement because most companies don’t pay enough to make it worth while – although some make a contribution.New plans would also let mothers transfer a proportion of their maternity leave and pay to the father.While the Government has made a firm commitment to increasing maternity leave, the plans to transfer it to the father are still at the consultation stage.. Since 6 April, it has cut the cost to parents of the existing childcare voucher system and encouraged companies to introduce such schemes.Through exemption on national insurance contributions (NICs) and income tax relief, the scheme allows an employer to contribute to its workers’ childcare costs, explains Kevin Condon, the director of employee benefits at independent financial adviser (IFA) Towry Law.”Companies realise they have to accommodate people – and vouchers are widely recognised among parents with young children as their most valuable company benefit This in turn induces loyalty.”Here’s how they work. So they offer comprehensive benefits packages that include creches, better maternity and paternity leave, flexible hours and childcare vouchers.The Government has offered a helping hand with the last of these. Screaming bosses and screaming children don’t make it easy simply to labour all day and go home at night. Any working parent will tell you that juggling the demands of office and family life is hard. This was meant to give savers more choice.But there are concerns that consumer suspicion – of IFA bias towards providers paying the highest commission – has not been fully addressed..

Instead, rewards for the adviser should be aligned to the performance of the investment sold, he said.Lack of confidence in IFAs, and the investment industry as a whole, sparked the arrival of a new regime called “depolarisation” on 1 June. 4 Gotland, Sweden Out in the Baltic Sea, about 100 miles south-east of Stockholm, the island of Gotland is a great destination for summer sun. Along with 50 miles of coastline, wonderful scenery, remote beauty spots and unpolluted air, it also offers kayaking, cycling and hiking. Tofta is one of the island’s most popular beaches, a long stretch of sand on the west coast, just south of the capital, Visby. Families tend to stake their claims on the northern stretch while youngsters party on the southern section. Visby is one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe.

Ljugarn, on the east coast, was the summer hub for the Stockholm elite in the early 1900s and today is the nearest thing Gotland has to a resort. On one end of the beach is the town, with its popular restaurants and caf? on the other is Vitvar, one of the island’s most picturesque fishing villages.Scantours (020-7839 2927; ) offers a five-night, six-day break from £835 per person, based on two sharing, including return flights from Heathrow, two nights’ b&b in Stockholm, bus and ferry transfers to Gotland, three nights’ b&b accommodation in Visby and car hire with unlimited mileage. Further information from the Swedish Travel & Tourism Council (020-7108 6168; ). 5 Brac, Croatia Forget Caribbean-style sands, Croatian beaches are where it’s at this summer. Most of the tiny white-stone beaches are in small coves and the lack of sand keeps the sea clear – the late Jacques Cousteau declared that Croatia is bounded by “one of the cleanest seas on earth”, and it is a great place for swimming and snorkelling.