If I can drive another car on my current insurance....

horngkai

The situation is my 2nd car, which normally is driven by my wife to work, is rarely used now since she is on maternity. The insurance for the car is coming up to an end. My current car insurance cover me for driving another car. Can I therefore, drive my wife's car (which itself have no insurance for) and still be covered by my own insurance?

Note: my wife is currently not driving for at least another few months until she goes back to work.

Thanks for your help.

cajef

No, the car must be insured to be legally on the road, your insurance is for your car not hers although it allows you to drive hers provided it is insured.

dogbot

actualy technicaly you could but not to be advised. You will trip all the ANPR cameras and constantly have to prove it is insured. In addition, this situation won't last long - now continuous enforcement is about to be launched any vehicle not declared SORN that also doesn't have valid insurance against it on MID will get a fine.

dacouch

It depends what your Insurance says about driving other cars, a small minority insist on the other car having it's own insurance and also a small minority of Insurers exclude cover under this section if you are driving your spouse's car.

If your policy does not have either (Or both) of the above exclusions you would be covered but it's only third party only cover eg no cover for damage to your wife's vehicle

As dogbot has mentioned the continuous insurance laws are starting soonish as well.

lisyloo

My understanding is that you could and as dacouch says unless otherwise specified the car wouold not need it's own insurance.
However you would not be able to leave it on a public road (as it's not insured).
If your employer has a private car park and you were driving from your own driveway/garage then you might be ok, but I don't believe the car would be insured when you left it, only whilst you are driving so be certain you put the handbrake on and leave it in gear as well.
If it rolls into another car or property then you could be in trouble.
Generally not adviseable.
The cover is really for emergencies e.g. a friend has a migraine and cannot drive.

Quentin

lisyloo wrote: »

The cover is really for emergencies e.g. a friend has a migraine and cannot drive.

That's a myth!

Where does it say that?

Driving third party only isn't just for emergencies at all!

dacouch

lisyloo wrote: »

However you would not be able to leave it on a public road (as it's not insured).
If your employer has a private car park and you were driving from your own driveway/garage then you might be ok, but I don't believe the car would be insured when you left it

There is case law that if say you were driving to work and stopped mid way to say pop into a shop before finishing the journey to work that you would still be deemed to be the driver / controller of the car whilst it's parked at the shop. This is because it's can be classed as one journey in the eyes of the law. Parking at the work car park however would break the journey the definition of the journey though

lisyloo

Where does it say that?

It doesn't say that anywhere.
It's common sense to any reasonable person that it's risky leaving your car uninsured where it could injur a person or damage property whilst uninsured.
Therefore common sense says any reasonable person would not want to use this unless they had no other choice.
Someone on here recently was benig chased by the MIB for being uninsured £43K and that's a real scenario (It wasn't a DOC (driving other cars) case but it's the amount I'm drawing attention to).

Driving third party only isn't just for emergencies at all!

Absoltuely the problem is parking uninsured. Especially if someone is injured and you are looking at a personal injury case.

Parking at the work car park however would break the journey the definition of the journey though

Sorry not clear on that sentence.
Are you saying it's insured or not insured?
Presumable at the motorway services you're not insured?

But hey if people want to do it, then it's there choice, of course.

Reciprocater

In the "good old days" you could use the third party only to drive other cars that were not specifically insured from one private place to another private place. The problem always was what happens when you cease to be the driver in other circumstances? (Vast amount of case law on this very subject of when you are no longer the driver) A vehicle still has to be insured against third party risks (or have other obscure cover mentioned in the Road Traffic Acts) when it is parked on a road (very wide definition) or public place (again very wide definition). In brief, all the latitude and near loopholes have been removed either by changes in the law or policy wording. At one point the insurance companies were being asked to remove DOC (drive other cars) from all policies. Fortunately, that has not yet happened for most of us. As others have mentioned, it looks like the Continuous Insurance Enforcement Scheme will start in April. I do not condone driving without insurance but it really is sad when you have to tell the government when you are not committing an offence. Will any administration be tempted to extend this to other offences?

forgotmyname

This is one of the reasons the new rules are coming into force. You will need to declare the car SORN and
take it off the road.

It maybe insured whilst you drive it but as soon as you get out of the car its uninsured. Your insurance may not
cover you to drive an uninsured car.

dacouch

lisyloo wrote: »

Sorry not clear on that sentence.
Are you saying it's insured or not insured?
Presumable at the motorway services you're not insured?

But hey if people want to do it, then it's there choice, of course.

Stopping at a motorway services would be covered as it's part of an overall journey unless your ultimate destination was the services.

The cases are similar to the ones on driving a car without an MOT to an MOT station on a pre booked MOT. If you stop at say a newsagents to buy fags on the way and the police stopped you while you're at the newsagents your still classed as being on your way to a pre booked mot