Marmalade specialises in cover for those with a learner's permit, short-term cover for students when they're home, black box cover for young drivers and named drivers on a parent's or grandparent's car. Solid customer reviews are encouraging and clear rules for black box driving keep you in the driver seat, and we like that they've improved their cover by now offering a guarantee on repairs (if you use an approved repairer).

If you're ready to get quotes or buy a policy, compare Marmalade to over 100 brands including RAC, Admiral and Hastings in under 2 minutes—click the blue "Get Quotes" button below. Remember not to wait too long—the best time to buy car insurance is 3 weeks before the start date and prices get more expensive the longer you wait.

In This Review

• Marmalade Car Insurance: Overall Review
• Customer Reviews and Ratings
• Discounts
• Phone numbers and policy documents
• FAQs

Marmalade Car Insurance Overall Review

Marmalade is a specialist provider of car insurance policies for young drivers who want a black box policy, learner drivers who don't have their full licence yet, student drivers and young drivers driving their parent's or grandparent's car. Marmalade accepts drivers up to 34 years of age and has policies aimed at 4 different types of young driver:

Customers of Marmalade will have their policy underwritten by one of the biggest UK car insurance companies, LV= or ageas:

Marmalade Black Box: How Restrictive Is It?

A black box policy can save a young driver hundreds of pounds a year or more, because it encourages safe driving while a new driver is gaining valuable experience behind the wheel. Many black box policies are quite restrictive, imposing curfews and cancelling policies if you get a speeding ticket. How tough is Marmalade's policy?

For starters, there's no curfew so you can drive at any time and there's no mileage limit (but you do need to be honest about the miles you plan on driving when you take out your policy).

Marmalade tracks your driving through a black box, which you fit yourself to your car (no waiting around for an engineer like you had to do a few years ago). The telematics tag will be posted to you after you have purchased your policy. The telematics tag is self-adhesive and you stick it on the side windscreen of your car. You also need to download the Marmalade Young Driver App. Once all that is done, you'll follow the instructions on the Young Driver app to pair the telematics tag with your smartphone.

The black box will track data including but not limited to the time of day/date of travel, location, distance driven, speed, braking frequency and force, acceleration and time spent stationary. This data will be used to develop a profile of your driving habits and patterns, as well as "driving behaviour scores" for each journey:

Named drivers are altogether allowed one red journey, at which point you'll receive a caution notice by email and SMS. You have 24 hours to review this caution—after the 24 hours are up then an additional red journey will mean you enter "stage 1" and will be charged an additional premium or, subject to availability, you'll be given a choice of an on-road training session with the road safety organisation IAM RoadSmart.

Features

As you'll see in the features table below, Marmalade black box policies offer most of the "must have" features one should look for in a policy according to the Money Advice Service, with a few exceptions. For example, the optional NCD protection only allows for 2 claims in 5 years, while many other insurers cover you for 2 claims in just 3 years.

But they've improved their cover—they now offer a guarantee (5 years) on insured damage repairs carried out by their approved repairers (they didn't used to offer a guarantee on this work).

Here is a high-level summary of Marmalade comprehensive cover features for Ageas-underwritten black box young driver policies bought direct from Marmalade—remember, these are always subject to conditions and exclusions, which you can read about in the policy documents.

How Good is Marmalade Car Insurance?	A Good Policy Includes	Does Marmalade Deliver?	Marmalade Comprehensive Coverage
"Must Have" Features
Windscreen	Full repair or replacement		Included
Belongings	£200+		Up to £250
Keys	£300+		Up to £1,000 if lost or stolen provided they are satisfied that whoever has the keys, transmitter or entry card knows the identity or location of your insured car, and care is taken to safeguard the keys, transmitter or entry card from loss.
Protected NCD	2 times in 3 years (standard or optional extra)		If you buy the add on
Car recovery after accident	Included		Included
Courtesy car (repairs)	Minimum 14 days		Included for duration of repairs
Repairs guaranteed (if use approved repairer)	12-month guarantee		1 year for parts; years if you use their recommended repairer; workmanship guaranteed while you own the car (if use approved repairer)
"Should Have" Features
New car replacement	Theft or damage at least 60% of list price; cars up to 12 months old; first owner		Included
Stereo and satellite nav	Market value for manufacturer fitted		Unlimited for OEM fitted; £300 on other permanently fitted
Alternative transport & Hotel after accident	£250+		Up to £300
24-hour emergency helpline	Standard		24-hour claims line (0333 358 0258)
Courtesy car (total loss or theft)	Standard or add-on extra		If you buy the add on
Motor legal expenses	Standard or add-on extra		If you buy the add on
Breakdown cover	Standard or add-on extra		If you buy the add on
"Could Have" Features
Same cover in EU	Standard or add-on extra		Minimum cover only for 90 days (see terms)
Child car seat replacement after accident, theft, fire	Ideally replaced even if no visible damage		Included, so long as you provide the purchase receipt for the original item
Larger/premium courtesy car	Standard or add-on extra		Not available
Uninsured driver NCD protection	Standard		Included
Cancellation fee	No more than £50		£25+ to the insurer and £15 to Marmalade (plus tax, of course)

Marmalade Car Insurance Customer Service Reviews and Ratings

Is Marmalade any good? Marmalade has really good customer reviews, achieving 4.3 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot from over 7,000 customers—this is a pretty high customer rating for this type of insurance, but their rating has slipped from 4.6 a year or two ago.

Sample of positive customer reviews of Marmalade

Here is a sample of some of the positive comments left by Marmalade customers online, so you can get a feel for what works well:

"Really good insurance also covers driving practical test."

"Really good to be able to talk to someone direct. Quick to answer the phone. Information emails confirming conversations and insurance very prompt."

"A fantastic insurance company for learner drivers! So easy to arrange and options for how long you want to insure the learner driver for. Thank you for making this experience from a parents point of view really stress free"

"fab service value for money"

"This is an excellent insurance company. Used them approx 3 years ago. Bought some more insurance again a couple of weeks ago for my daughter. Unfortunately there was a close family death the day after the insurance started so I wasn't able to take my daughter out. Spoke to the team leader who was very sympathetic and handled my call excellently. She cancelled the insurance and gave me the premium back then advised that when we were ready to re buy the learner driver insurance. A company that is this caring and understanding is definitely worth shouting about."

"Quick and easy to set up and goes towards your own no claims. Simply incredible and can get driving straight away"

"Great service and the cheapest quote for a new driver by about £200."

"Very helpful and easy to arrange and the price stays the same when my son passes totally recommend. Have also been using the app it’s great keeps on eye on how your doing had no problems."

Sample of negative customer reviews of Marmalade

Here is a sample of negative comments left by customers so you can see some common complaints:

"Wouldn't use again go straight to a normal policy especially as driving test waiting list are so long had to renew twice and its a lot of money, as for Marmalade trying to get hold of someone is a nightmare i was on hold for 1hr 38mins then got cut off we sent a call back request and an email and a month later we are still waiting for a reply also still waiting for documentation email to say we are insured and the policy has now ran out and still waiting not impressed sorry."

"Customer service is a hit and miss..."

"Think it’s wrong that the additional adult has to be a parent. I don’t think it caters for every one with different family structures."

"... complained that it was a postcode lottery, I see your response was that sometimes you won’t insure people if their address is in a new build which I’m guessing is the reason you declined my daughter because she has her own home in a new build."

"Been trying to contact them for days to get my black box fitted and the only date available is 2 weeks from now!"

Marmalade Car Insurance Discounts

Marmalade offers a typical set of car insurance discounts, such as savings for good driving records, no claims discounts and paying in full at the start of each policy year.

Cancellation & Admin Fees

Marmalade fees vary depending on the type of policy you have, but in most cases you should expect to pay a fee to the insurer (e.g., highway or ageas) and also to Marmalade if you want to cancel your policy. Here are some of the cancellation and admin fees to be aware of (but your terms of business document will explain more of them, and in full).

Important Marmalade Car Insurance Phone Numbers

Customers can reach Marmalade customer service 6 days a week, not on Sundays. There's an online live chat feature and phone customer service lines which are open Monday - Thursday: 9:00am - 6:30pm, Friday: 9:00am - 5:30pm and Saturday: 9:00am - 3:00pm.

Policy Documents & Claims

To find out more about the conditions and exclusions, read the policy documents. Below we supply links to the policy documents for each type of Marmalade insurance, as well as links for claiming.

FAQs

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