Insurance cover note and road tax

Mookfish

Hi I am selling my car as I have been given a newer, bigger car by my father in law. The new car has a full MOT but no road tax and I waiting for my old car to sell to pay for the tax. Question is can an insurer email a cover note that can be printed out and used to buy road tax at the post office? My insurance is currently with elephant.

Bossyboots

I am sure that you have to produce an original document, so I don't think you can do what you are suggesting.

Mookfish

I was hoping it may be possible to do it this way, as if you buy road tax online your insurance is checked electronicaly, so i was hoping they had some system where the post office checked electronically as well.

Just looked at my current insurance certificate and there are no holograms, watermarks or suchlike, so I'd assume that the post office must check on computer by the policy number.

I think I will phone them when they open at ten.

Astaroth

Swiftcover now only produces certificates by email unless you pay an extra fee for having a printed copy.

Whilst there is often no watermarks etc it is the general weight of the paper that gives the post office etc confidence that it is genuine and not a fake. I am not aware that the post office have a computer to check the MID database as I know my missus receives a few calls from the post office to check if a certificate that someone has presented is real or not (she works in counter fraud) but it may be that they are only calling after checking MID and getting no matches (as mistakes are made on MID occasionally)

Bossyboots

This is what the Post Office website says

"You'll also need to take along:

A valid insurance certificate or cover note - not a renewal invitation or a photocopy, facsimile, policy receipt or schedule."

So it will come down to whether they accept your printed e-mail version as an original or not but it doesn't specifically exclude this form of proof in the list.

Mookfish

Just phoned the insurance co. No luck on the email thing, but they can send out a new cover note guaranteed next day delivery, at a additional cost of £7.50.

C_Ronaldo

just do it online, i did and its easy

nej

Agreed that online is easy. I did it yesterday it took about 2 minutes total.

But, I think the post-office might be able to check electronically. When I bought my new car the insurance covernote didn't turn up as it was supposed to (in the end it turned up at my house the day before I picked up the car, not at the dealer like it was supposed to).

The dealer could tax vehicles on-site and they said if it didn't arrive they might be able to do it anyway and check it electronically.

impy78

Mookfish wrote:

Just looked at my current insurance certificate and there are no holograms, watermarks or suchlike, so I'd assume that the post office must check on computer by the policy number.

They don't check it for you. You need to provide the original document.

Remeber you can tax it online, but until you have the physical tax disc, it is still an offence to drive the vehicle or park it on a road.

You cannot be fined by DVLA, as they have a record of the tax, but the police can give you three points and a fine for "Failure to display a valid tax disc"

Mookfish

So I either wait for the cover note to arrive in the post to tax it and do without the car, or I buy the tax online and wait for the tax disc to arrive and still have to do without the car.

Now I know ads for cars with little/no tax remaining sometimes offer to tax the car before collection at the buyers expense.

espresso

Mookfish wrote:

So I either wait for the cover note to arrive in the post to tax it and do without the car, or I buy the tax online and wait for the tax disc to arrive and still have to do without the car.

When I last taxed online, the disc arrived two days later. Technically you could be penalised for not displaying a disc but it's unlikely!