41% of parents deliberately break the law in order to save on car insurance, a study by Co-Operative Insurance has revealed. When filling out insurance policy applications, many parents claim to be the primary driver of the car, when in fact the car is used mostly by their child. This practice is known as ‘fronting’, and is believed to have significantly increased as people are driven to desperate tactics to save money during the recession.

Fronting is risky as it can be identified if the car is registered to a parent’s address and yet spends most of its time in a different place. The most common example is if the child is studying at university in a different city. Parents have been strongly advised not to lie on their insurance policy applications; it may save money in the short-term but ultimately there is a risk of prosecution and of not being able to obtain insurance in the future.