What if car isnt parked in garage all the time...

Kayleigh1986

Im sorting my first insurance, clearly its cheaper if its going to be parked in the garage, but what happens if it isnt always parked in the garage, what happens if its parked there most of the time but that one time i park it on the street it gets broken into or bumped....

newbie to all this

lisyloo

clearly its cheaper if its going to be parked in the garage

Is that an assumption? or have you checked?
It's not actually as clear as you might think.
More thefts recently have happened with thieves taking car keys from the home. If you car is in the garage then they know which one is yours.
If it's out on the street they have to guess - which they may be able to do, but it makes it more risky for the theives if they have to spend time outdoors acting suspiciously.

but that one time i park it on the street it gets broken into or bumped....

Some insurers will put on an excesss e.g. I've had a £200 garaging excecss which applies if I'm within 500 yards of home but don't use the garage.
In some cases (there was one here recently) where cover might be explicitly excluded. I believe this case was in a risky area.

If you want to take a discount for putting you are in the garage then you should expect to put it in the garage all the time.
If you don't want to do that then don't say the car is parked in the garage.

To see what any specific insurer does you'd need to check their policy.
It might be explicitly not covered in some cases, other cases (bike policies) I've had add on an excess.

mikey72

On road parking is always cheapest for me, on the drive is next.

Kayleigh1986

lisyloo wrote: »

Is that an assumption? or have you checked?
It's not actually as clear as you might think.
More thefts recently have happened with thieves taking car keys from the home. If you car is in the garage then they know which one is yours.
If it's out on the street they have to guess - which they may be able to do, but it makes it more risky for the theives if they have to spend time outdoors acting suspiciously.

Some insurers will put on an excesss e.g. I've had a £200 garaging excecss which applies if I'm within 500 yards of home but don't use the garage.
In some cases (there was one here recently) where cover might be explicitly excluded. I believe this case was in a risky area.

If you want to take a discount for putting you are in the garage then you should expect to put it in the garage all the time.
If you don't want to do that then don't say the car is parked in the garage.

To see what any specific insurer does you'd need to check their policy.
It might be explicitly not covered in some cases, other cases (bike policies) I've had add on an excess.

yes its £300 a year cheaper, my worry was its shared access to mine and next doors garages so one day if they were blocking or anything what would happen

JethroUK

Kayleigh1986 wrote: »

Im sorting my first insurance, clearly its cheaper if its going to be parked in the garage, but what happens if it isnt always parked in the garage, what happens if its parked there most of the time but that one time i park it on the street it gets broken into or bumped....

Then technically you're not insured - so they could get out of paying on that 'technicality' - not sure what they would actually do thou

Skinto_7

Kayleigh,

I think it might depend on the insurance company, my mate got his car knicked from the street outside his mum and dads house, when he said in his insurance that it was kept in the garage, and had no issue with getting it settled.

Although from my own expierance of dealing with insurance companies have found that they will look for any reason to reduce their pay out!!!

Sorry for not being much help, but dont think there is a definitive answer, if your car is only going to be parked in the street on rare occassions you would have to be realy unlucky for something to happen it to it then, so could be worth the risk to save yourself £300, but on the other hand, sods law could hit you and the one night you do park on the sreet, your car gets knocked and your insurance company doesnt pay out!! Suppose you need to decide if you think its worth the risk!!

lisyloo

so one day if they were blocking or anything what would happen

Ah I see. I think you are worrying too much TBH.
If that did happen then you should take reasonable steps e.g. knock on the door and try to find the neighbour to move the car, park it as safely as possible, but beyond that there is nothing you can do.

You could buy some safety devices such as a wheel clamp for emergencies, but as you say it wouldn't stop you being bumped.

We cannot guarantee what any particular insurer would do in such a case but personally I wouldn't worry too much about extreme scenarios.
There is a financial ombudsman service that is free to you that will make your insurer act fairly.
If it turns out to be the neighbour that is liable then they should have insurance and if not there is a fallback scheme for uninsured drivers.

So can't say exactly how it would play it, but at least there is an independent body that will make your insurer act fairly and a fallback scheme if you are unlucky enough to be involved with an uninsured driver.

You won't get to find out how good your insurer is until you claim, but I wouldn't get too worried over extremely unlikely events - there is probably a never ending list, and ultimately your in the hands of your insurer, which is why it pays to try to get a good one although that's not easy to work out.

System

If car insurance really is cheaper if you keep the car in the road, then failing to tell them that actually it was in the garage would be a material fact.

lisyloo

If car insurance really is cheaper if you keep the car in the road, then failing to tell them that actually it was in the garage would be a material fact.

It's a good point, but it does depend on what the question asks and also what you policy says.
For example the questions I am often asked are usually along the lines of "Where is the car normally kept?".
If that is answered honestly then a one-off or occassional case where it's different shouldn't need to be disclosed.
Of course it also depends on what is in the policy. One guy was on here recently and it explicitly said his motorcycle wouldn't be insured outside the garage overnight (at explicit time).
That is explicitly clear.
My motorcycle policies (they are easy to steal) usually have a "non-gargaging excess".
That doesn't mean it's a material fact and doesn't mean I have to call them as the situation is explicitly catered for in the policy.

So I can see the point you are making but whether it's a material fact depends on what you declared initially e.g. normally kept in a garage and also what is stated in the policy as the alternative may be already catered for in some way e.g.. higher excess or no coverage.

mikey72

For once, Axa were crystal clear. The question -Where is your vehicle kept overnight? The help - What if I leave it in different places? Please tell us where your car is kept overnight most of the time. Can't argue with that. Mine's normally on the road, occasionally I'm home first and put it on the drive, so one of the stated drive cars is parked overnight on the road.

Just_Some_Guy

Usually they're only interested in where the car is normally kept - normal being 95%+ of the time. High value cars, cars in dodgy postcodes, or cars insured by Ebeneezer Scrooge Insurance Ltd will have to always be kept in the garage on pain of a hefty additional excess or outright refutation of the claim (expensive!).

This is one of those things where the devil is in the detail, and you can either read the insurance policy from cover to cover to see if you are allowed occasional non garage parking, or you can phone them up and ask.