Parents have been warned not to insure their children’s cars in their names in order to reduce the costs of car insurance.

The practice, known as ‘fronting’ is used by parents whose sons or daughters have just started using a vehicle. While the insurance is under a parent’s name, the child is added as a named driver but a car insurance specialist has warned that the parents are risking the future of both them and their children.

If an insurance company suspects that parents have used fronting to reduce the costs of insurance, they can refuse to pay out in the event of an accident and thousands of claims are rejected each year for this reason. Nigel Lacey from Young Marmalade, an insurance company that caters for young drivers, warned that fronting is classed as insurance fraud and could potentially end up in the criminal courts. If the child is found to be driving without adequate insurance, they could also be forced to re-take their test. In addition to this, insurance will be more expensive in the future for both the parent and the child because the rejected claim will stay on the motor insurance database.