Am I covered to drive another car?

Quentin

You cannot leave a car on a public road uninsured. Correct. Your licence was correctly endorsed!

I'm saying your brother was legally insured whilst driving the car using his "driving other cars extension". Also correct

The police who told you your brother was driving without legal insurance, and had they caught him driving it would have prosecuted him were incorrect!

darich

FH Brit is right in that a car must have its own insurance in place to be on the road. But when you're driving it under the "other cars" part of your policy, you are complying with the law and the car DOES have insurance.
HOWEVER, as soon as you exit the vehicle, the OWNER, not the driver, is breaking the law because he has an uninsured car on the public road.

But a car does not need to be insured in its own right for the "driving other cars" part of your policy. Only when it is unattended does it need insurance of its own.

flyingjock1

Third party cover or driving other cars cover (DOC) is at the discretion of the insurance company providing the insurance cover for the insurance policy your are on. As mentioned earlier DOC applies only to the policyholder and only meant to be used in emergency ie policyholder is passenger in friends car with friend driving. friend becomes incapacitated. at this point the policyholder can get behind the wheel and drive the car onto its destination but note that the cover is third party only which means that only damage done to property or persons is covered. DOC is sometimes abused by people who take it as a blank cheque to drive any other car for months on end. as for leaving the car uninsured, any car kept on the road must be taxed insured and roadworthy - thus the ticketing by pc plod.

lisyloo

and only meant to be used in emergency

If it doesn't specify this then I don't see how they can hold you to it.
Do they specify this and do they specify what they mean by "emergency"?
Illness is hardly an emergency although a 100 mile taxi would prove expensive, but it's not normally what you'd call an "emergency", just not always possible to call their call center out of hourrs.

I did let a friend drive my car to work on occassion (not all the time) whilst I was cycling. My own car was useful as it had a rack to take my bicycle home, so he would drive one way.
The car was 20 years old so the TPO bit was not an issue.
I don't see how the insurer could wiggle out of it on an "emergency" clause that I have never seen specified.

If they say you can drive other cars and don't accompany it with other terms and conditions then they would have to abide by that and I suspect they would have to pay a 3rd party under the RTA.

I never thought of our use of it as "abuse" because he was driving a much "lower quality" (older) car than if he'd been driving his own, so the third party risk is no different to commuting in his own car. In fact by using 1 car instead of 2 we were actually reducing the risk of a claim.

If they want to specify that clause then they shoudl and ca, but they need to TELL people and I've never seen that in any of my polcies ever.

dacouch

I think people have started quoting the "Emergency" part as NU/Aviva decided a couple of years ago they were going to phase DOC out and expected everyone to follow them (I had a chat with their rep and their claims for DOC was amazingly high and was incredibly top heavy with very big personal injury claims).

The rest of the market ignored NU/Aviva as they would have lost customers and eventually (As per normal) NU/Aviva dropped the idea and carried on offering DOCs.

The Police and Government are not keen on DOC so there is a chance it may be amended or deleted in the future

flyingjock1

I used to work for an insurance intermediary up until about a year ago. The DOC isnt something that you can pay to get added or get a reduction to take it off, its either on the policy if you take it out or it isnt. It can be useful for the policyholder if used under the circumstances i mentioned in earlier thread. Under the DOC cover we used to provide on policies it meant that even if the policyholder had a basic say corsa he could technically drive a Porsche Boxer but again only 3rd party only (thing is would you let your best friend drive round a porsche boxer unaccompanied - very trusting if you were). When i mentioned emergency only its what we were told the insurance panel members were trying to introduce. Good of you to let your friend drive your car, but did he have DOC on his policy to allow him to drive it? If not he was driving it illegally unless he has a policy which allows him to drive any car which i dont know if any insurer actually offers.

negg

But if a police officer pulls you over and asks you to get out, at that point you have will have to leave the vehicle uninsured where they can then charge you!

And they will pull you over, since a car without it's own insurance will flag up on their database!

Quentin

You would have a defence were they to try and prosecute under those circumstances!

lisyloo

flyingjock1 wrote: »

Good of you to let your friend drive your car

Well my friend was doing me a favour as it enabled me to cycle one way (BIG hill) and take the bike back on the car.
I am aware of the risks but I would say he was a more cautious driver than me and the car was an old banger (got scrapped May 2009) so I decided I could deal with losing it if the worst happened.

but did he have DOC on his policy to allow him to drive it?

I asked him to check his policy first because I was aware it's no longer standard and he checked his policy and he did have it.

If not he was driving it illegally

I would always ask anyone to check their policy first because I'm aware it's not standard. But if they did drive illegally then my understanding is the driver is liable not the owner.

Quentin

lisyloo wrote: »

. But if they did drive illegally then my understanding is the driver is liable not the owner.

No!

If you allow an uninsured driver to drive your car you are guilty of the offence of permitting the vehicle to be used by an uninsured driver and face a licence endorsement of 6–8 points and a fine.