Electric Cars & Insurance

Monkey99_2

Hi,

I'm looking to buy an electric vehicle and havce been shopping around for insurance quotes and have 2 questions I wonder if you can help me with?

1) Which insurers are best for electric car insurance quotes?
2) I've been asked by my broker if on the car I purchase if I will own or lease the batteries? Does anyone know which is the best option?

Cheers!:)

huckster

Don't know the answers but answering to bump your post.

Think you will need to phone around and see what the terms are. I see that Direct Line will quote, but they do have some concerns regarding different aspects. There is a company called pluginsure that appear to specialise in covering electric and hybrid cars.

dogbot

Batteries make up a large part of the cost of the electric car, and insurers are currently mulling over what this means. Who owns them makes a difference from the point of view of insurable interest. They are also debating the various issues that could arise with EVs - insurers are slow to change at the best of times and seem to mostly have a built in mistrust of the new at times.

In addition to insurable interest, another point some are debating is - you plug in the vehicle to charge, wherever, and someone trips over the lead - who picks up the liability, the motor insurer or not (would be picked up by your household liability or other).

There are also points about valuations, used values etc some say depreciation will be super fast, others more sensibly I think, argue this is wrong... but it is the kind of complete uncertaintly insurers worry about.

Any worries about safety issues raised all seem to be non issues as vehicles are being crash tested and safety tested by Thatcham and manufacturers. They are probably better than oli powered cars - much lower fire risks. Security also tends to be very good - harder to get arround the sophisticated computers.

The best basis I think is to lease the whole lot, car and batteries - Nissan will be offering this with the Leaf but are yet to release details. Renault are certainly intent on leasing the batteries I think, no doubt they will also do full lease deals too.

You are best to approach the insurance brands of the manufacturers - Renault and Nissan both offer branded insurance and this is arranged by Equity Direct broking.