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Show The Data
The two-year insurance rule has blocked newly qualified HGV drivers from employment for a decade. Named in Parliament nine times. Recommended for reform. Excluded from every crisis measure since 2021. Every insurer holds the claims data to prove it. None has been required to show it.
1 May 2026
Marc Fels
Named in Parliament nine times since 2016. Will the tenth time be
different?
In 2025, personal motor insurance premiums fell 10% as the market softened. Commercial fleet premiums rose 8%. Fleet is the industry's profitable growth segment. The insurers benefiting from that growth have maintained a convention blocking most newly qualified HGV drivers from employment for adecade. Named in parliament nine times. Recommended for reform. Excluded from every crisis measure since 2021. The data to justify it sits in every insurer's claims system. This report asks them to show it.
2016 First year the two-year insurance rule was named in parliamentary evidence House of Commons Transport Select Committee | 87% Of live HGV job listings that exclude or are silent on newly qualified drivers Reed / Totaljobs 4,600+ listings · April 2026 | 0 of 33 Government crisis measures since 2021 that addressed insurance DfT / UWE evaluation, December 2023 | 49% Fall in HGV-involved casualties since 2015. The two-year rule is unchanged DfT RAS0601, September 2024 |
THE RECORD
Every time it was named. What followed.
The insurance barrier to newly qualified HGV drivers has been on the formal record for adecade. Every entry below appeared in parliamentary evidence, government research or regulatory process. Every entry is drawn from a named, dated, publicly available source.
DATE | SOURCE | FINDING | OUTCOME |
Feb 2016 | Transport Select Committee | Two-year insurance rule: very difficult for a haulier to take on newly trained young drivers. | NO ACTION |
2016–17 | TSC published report | Insurance costs for newly qualified drivers, especially under 25, prohibitively high. | NO ACTION |
Jan 2022 | TSC road freight inquiry | Insurance firms will not insure a new Class 1 driver | NO ACTION |
Jan 2022 | Baroness Vere, DfT Minister | "No, not insurance — because the companies pay for it." Wrong. On the record. Never corrected. | DISMISSED |
May 2023 | NatCen / DfT research | Recommended addressing insurance costs for new and young drivers as a supply-side priority. | NOT ACTIONED |
Dec 2023 | DfT / UWE evaluation | Zero of 33 post-2021 measures addressed insurance. Why 28% of Bootcamp graduates never found work: not examined | OUTSIDE SCOPE |
2024–26 | DVSA Business Plans | Both cite Bootcamps — the 2025–26 plan after they were cancelled. Insurance: absent. | NOT MENTIONED |
Nov 2025 | RHA Driver Workforce Report | 117,000+ drivers left citing insurance. Called for a joined-up response. | NAMED ONLY |
Oct 2024–Jul 2025 | FCA Motor Insurance Taskforce | £20 billion in premiums. Three reports. Commercial fleet and NQD exclusions: absent. | WRONG SCOPE |
Nine entries. Three governments. Named, recommended, excluded. This is not oversight. It is a consistent outcome of how the system is structured.
WHAT THE MARKET SAID
Unprompted. At scale. Same finding.
When The Broken Transition was published by trans.info in April 2026, 850+ comments followed within days from drivers, operators and agency workers across the industry. No prompt to discuss insurance. It was the dominant theme.
WHO | WHAT THEY SAID |
Driver 15+ yrs, Class 1 | Insurance companies have put a blanket ban on new passes for Class 1 jobs — even without looking at your personal history. I've had a 7.5 tonne licence for over 30 years. But I have no Class 1 experience, so I can't get a job." |
Fleet operator Active owner | "You could pass your test, not drive for two years, and then be fine on my insurance. There is no requirement to prove you've been driving. Madness." |
Driver Newly qualified | "Passed my Class 1 in 2016. Could have started next day — but no company could take me on. Despite my 25 years of Class 2 experience — that doesn't count." |
Parent of NQD Driver qualified at 18 | "My son got his Class 1 at 18. Two years later and we still can't find anyone who will insure him at his age." |
Driver Job applicant | "It was asked at interview: why should they pay five times the amount to employ me?" |
ON THE GOVERNMENT'S OWN JOBS BOARD · MARCH 2025 DWP Find a Job · Job ref 16194299 · Total Recruitment Solutions "Must have 2 years experience, 25+ for insurance purposes." Live job advert, DWP Find a Job service, March 2025. The barrier operating in public view, on a government platform. |
NOTE ON THIS EVIDENCE Not a survey. An unprompted public record consistent with nine parliamentary entries above. trans.info, April 2026. trans.info/en/wanted-60-000-drivers-471678 |
THE COMPARISON
Government has intervened in the insurance market before. Not here.
Flood Re. The FCA loyalty pricing ban. The current Motor Insurance Taskforce. Each time government identified a market failure in insurance, it built a mechanism. The table below shows both sides of that record.
DONE · FLOOD INSURANCE Flood Re Government-backed reinsurance for uninsurable flood-risk properties. Made cover accessible at standard market terms. 660,000+ households covered since 2016. Flood Re Annual Report 2024–25 | DONE · PERSONAL MOTOR PRICING FCA loyalty pricing ban FCA banned price walking. Compelled 12 major insurers to disclose claims data. Forced market-wide repricing. £4.2bn estimated consumer saving over 10 years. FCA PS21/5 |
ACTIVE · MOTOR INSURANCE TASKFORCE FCA Motor Insurance Taskforce Established October 2024. Covers 44 million policies. Compelled personal motor claims data disclosure. HGV commercial fleet: absent from scope. £20bn annual premiums under scrutiny. FCA, July 2025 | NOT DONE · HGV NEWLY QUALIFIED DRIVERS No intervention built Named in Parliament since 2016. Recommended for action in 2023. Evaluated outside scope the same year. No mechanism. No data compelled. 0 dedicated interventions in a decade. DfT/UWE, December 2023 |
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