Car Insurance - Driveway?

twh

Would anybody be able to help me please. I was wondering what the definition of "driveway" is in terms of car insurance?

My property has it's own private parking spaces off the highway land at the end of a cul-de-sac. Nobody else can park there. So it is not parked on a "public road" either. But there are 6 other parking spaces around for the other properties. So what category would it come under?

darich

My understanding is that a driveway is your private land - part of your building plot.
A private parking space is essentially still on the public road, even if you own the space.

I may well be wrong, but I'd imagine that the private space would be classed as public road.

lisyloo

I may well be wrong, but I'd imagine that the private space would be classed as public road.

That doesn't make any sense to me (unless I've misunderstood).

I've had a private parking space before.
I don't mean part of the public road that's marked out like a disabled bay.
I mean privately owned land that you have title to in the land registry.

I don't think land can be both private and on the public road (legally) it's one or the other.

A private parking space is essentially still on the public road, even if you own the space.

I think it's on priavte land and not the public road. Unless you are talking about a specific disabled bay which might be on the public road but I'm envisaging privately owned land marked as such on title deeds.

According to on-line dictionarys a "driveway" leads to a house or garage, so unless insurance have specific terms then a private parking space that doesn't lead to a house or gargage is NOT a driveway, but the best thing to do is to look at the insurance policy terms.

I would be very careful with this.
It may be a case where the discount is tiny but if you park in the wrong place (and s*ds law is that you'll need to claim the one night you park somewhere else) then you could have a claim turned down.
So personally I would go for the highest risk category unless you always, always park in one place.

darich

Without a fence or barrier then there would be nothing to stop joe public using/turning/abusing the private space.
Assuming this is the case, then easily accessible by the public is what I meant be being classed as public in insurance terms, despite being privately owned. I appreciate the same could happen with a private driveway, but the difference is the public's perception of the private drive compared to the private parking space.

I also think that an untaxed car may be clamped even if in the private space, whereas parking the car in the driveway, the untaxed car I doubt the car would be clamped.

MarkyMarkD

A parking space which is not adjacent to your property is higher risk for the insurer than your own drive, because you can't see it from your own property and it's far more likely to get tampered with/stolen/broken into/hit by another vehicle. It does not count as "on your driveway" for insurance purposes and you should declare it as being parked on the road.

mikey72

We have a variety of cars, and whoever gets home last parks on the road, whoever is first parks on the drive.
We declared they are all kept on the road for the insurance, it made no difference to the price on any of them.

MarkyMarkD

It depends on the sort of area you live in. In some areas there's not much risk wherever you park; in others, a locked garage is way better than a dodgy street possibly quite some distance from your house, and a drive's a good compromise.

greanback

Those are interesting insights...i also had a similar question. Who would know that a simple thing like a driveway could get so complicated...lolz

Lirin

Had similar with my insurance company.

Parking area behind our house, so not directly on road. As it is directly outside our house, however, insurance told me they'd class it as a driveway- lower risks with driveway from passing traffic/pedestrians, which they decided my parking area fell under.

silvercar

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

A parking space which is not adjacent to your property is higher risk for the insurer than your own drive, because you can't see it from your own property and it's far more likely to get tampered with/stolen/broken into/hit by another vehicle. It does not count as "on your driveway" for insurance purposes and you should declare it as being parked on the road.

There was a programme on TV years ago that echoed this. A guy had got car insurance with driveway specified for night parking. His driveway was actually in front of his garage in a row of garages that were around the corner from his house. His claim was reduced when his car was stolen as he hadn't revealed the true location of his driveway.

pinkteapot

Phone the insurer, explain the parking situation, and let them choose the category. What you've described is not a driveway as most insurers would think of it. When I lived in a flat and had a parking space in the building car park, the insurer put it down as "private parking area" from their category list and that is what my policy schedule then said. Your car isn't parked on the road. The risk and therefore cost will be somewhere between parked on the road and on a drive.

Don't guess at it; not worth running the risk in case you need to claim for something that happens while it's parked. Call them and ask what option you should choose if you're buying the insurance online.