Vehicle question

chunx

I've taken this from the Direct Line questions and answers:

Can the policyholder and the registered owner be different?
The policyholder and the registered owner may be different, but only providing the registered owner is the policyholder's spouse/partner. Otherwise the policyholder and registered owner must the same person.

So as you see, you can only insure the car if it owned by you or your spouse. So the starter of this thread was talking about his parents buying the car and allowing him use - he could not insure the car himself as his parents would have to be registered owners and he was a named driver. You cannot insure something which is not your own.

Like, I say - I'm happy for everyone's sake to be told I am wrong.

Mouse1812

I think the issue is the requirement that you have a "financial interest" in the thing which you seek to insure.

A significant number of motorists drive vehicles under either contract hire or finance lease agreements. While they don't own these vehicles, they do have a financial interest in them - they have to pay monthly rentals and indemnify the owner against loss by holding valid insurance. Surely they must have valid insurance. So perhaps ownership is not the whole picture.

The danger with "online" insurance products is all the hidden assumptions (I bet hundreds of thousands of people have defective insurance, not just motor but all other kinds as well).

Best to discuss your arrangement directly with some insurance companies. I’m sure it is possible, but will require a more bespoke policy that can be obtained from a bunch of Meerkats.

Mouse1812

chunx wrote: »

I've taken this from the Direct Line questions and answers:

Can the policyholder and the registered owner be different?
The policyholder and the registered owner may be different, but only providing the registered owner is the policyholder's spouse/partner. Otherwise the policyholder and registered owner must the same person.

Well done Direct Line ! - where the hell do they get “registered owner” from? I’ve owned, driven, borrowed, bought and sold a few cars in my time and not one has ever been recorded as having a “Registered Owner”. Who keeps that register then?

OWNER does not equal KEEPER

Also from Direct Line:

Is it possible to get car insurance on a car that is not owned by my partner or me?

If it is a company car, or one that is on long-term lease for example, we can look at insuring it in your name. To discuss your circumstances further please contact our Customer Hotline on 0845 246 8701.

chunx

I've got to admit it is very ambiguous and most insurers will look at the whole picture if people are honest with them before taking out a policy.

In terms of some of these "multiple" websites, they ask you to check the "assumptions" as each insurance company has it's own underwriting criteria to which they work to.

Some favour young people (such as Bell Insurance), some favour more no claimers such as "More Than".

For the poster of this thread (sorry we've taken over your question with motor insurance queries) - and use the Direct Line example - if your parents owned the car, you could only be added as a named driver to the policy but the cover will probably be limited to SDP - social and domestic pleasure to and from ONE normal place of work. (That's something else that people are unsure about). If you travel to various sites for your employer, you need business insurance as these addtional employer sites would not classed as your "permanent place of work".

If you need to use the vehicle for business purposes, then you would normally have Class 1 Business Miles (which covers around 5,000 per year) but it would not be applied to a policy which you were only a named driver on - it comes back to the term I used "fronting".

"Fronting" can also be used as a term for young drivers who say their parents own the car and they are a named driver. This way it keeps the young drivers insurance cost down but it IS illegal and again readers who have done this should be warned that any claim under any of the circumstances that I have detailed, could have their claim repudiated. You can also then find yourself on the Fraud register which is shared with other Insurance companies.

I'll say this for a third time - I hope that I am proved wrong and things have changed in the 10 years since I worked in the insurance industry.

Tiddlywinks

Hulahoops87 wrote: »

Brilliant going to look extremely professional turning up to customers houses in a car thats more then likely going to be beaten to death.

You need to change your perception of 'professional' as it does NOT depend on how much you own.

I have worked with 'old' and 'new' money high-flyers and many of them drove battered old Land Rovers / Volvos / Citroens.

People who are comfortable with their own abilities don't need 'show' to support their egos.

Hulahoops87 wrote: »

I'm the manager at a plumbers merchant, I'm primarily office based but have to do occasional site visits and trips to customers houses when problems arise. Not enough traveling to warrant a company car, but I need one none the less.

Plumbers merchant? Get a van.

PippaGirl_2

Must admit if someone turned up to sell me something in a flash vehicle, I would think immediately that they obviously charge too much! Older/cheaper car, and they must be reasonable.

sniggings

PippaGirl wrote: »

Must admit if someone turned up to sell me something in a flash vehicle, I would think immediately that they obviously charge too much! Older/cheaper car, and they must be reasonable.

or not doing so well.

debtinfo

chunx wrote: »

I've got to admit it is very ambiguous and most insurers will look at the whole picture if people are honest with them before taking out a policy.

In terms of some of these "multiple" websites, they ask you to check the "assumptions" as each insurance company has it's own underwriting criteria to which they work to.

Some favour young people (such as Bell Insurance), some favour more no claimers such as "More Than".

For the poster of this thread (sorry we've taken over your question with motor insurance queries) - and use the Direct Line example - if your parents owned the car, you could only be added as a named driver to the policy but the cover will probably be limited to SDP - social and domestic pleasure to and from ONE normal place of work. (That's something else that people are unsure about). If you travel to various sites for your employer, you need business insurance as these addtional employer sites would not classed as your "permanent place of work".

If you need to use the vehicle for business purposes, then you would normally have Class 1 Business Miles (which covers around 5,000 per year) but it would not be applied to a policy which you were only a named driver on - it comes back to the term I used "fronting".

"Fronting" can also be used as a term for young drivers who say their parents own the car and they are a named driver. This way it keeps the young drivers insurance cost down but it IS illegal and again readers who have done this should be warned that any claim under any of the circumstances that I have detailed, could have their claim repudiated. You can also then find yourself on the Fraud register which is shared with other Insurance companies.

I'll say this for a third time - I hope that I am proved wrong and things have changed in the 10 years since I worked in the insurance industry.

I dont really know anything about insurance but do know from my own area of expertise that the law and the policy of a particular company are usually 2 different things, so i would ask the question, since registered owner is not a legal term that i recognise since i dont know of anyone that actually keeps a register of owners, is it possible that your quote from direct line is simply just their own t&c's and not an actual representation of what is lawful or possible. so perhaps the answer her is just to ask around various insurance companies, afterall soe have differing opinions on insuring bankrupts anyway

alastairq

Having read through most of the above, I see we seem to be floundering about in the age-old trap [as hilited by Mouse, no less]...of differentiating between the owner of a vehicle......and the registered keeper of that vehicle.


As Mouse says....and this can be verified by scrutinising a vehicle's V5c.......the Registered Keeper may not necessarily be the owner.

For example, ones parents can buy a car.....[proof being, bills of sale, receipts, etc.]

The car can then be loaned on a 'permanent' basis to a relative.

The relative [as the primary user] needs to register the car in their name [and address].

They are still not the actual owners of the car.


Insurers most often require the proposer to be the registered keeper of the vehicle.

It is the Registered Keeper's duty in law to ensure the vehicle has current VED, MoT and insurance.

[Also, the duty of any driver.]


Quite how a RK who is not the actual owner of a vehicle, goes about indemnifying the owner for loss or damage, may well be another matter.

So...by all means accept the loan of a suitable vehicle from one's parents.

Register it in one's own name, as the registered keeper.

Insure it likewise.

The car would not appear on the BR petition because it isn't owned by the BR petitioner......

The important part of the BR lies within the SOA....can the BR petitioner get the OR to agree to transport running costs?

I don't see why not? If the OR baulks at allowing motoring expenses, then alternative Public transport costings need to be argued for.

Then take the car running costs out of those?


Seems to me the only real problem is a lack of understanding about the motoring world itself?

SteveJW

Hulahoops87 wrote: »

I'm the manager at a plumbers merchant, I'm primarily office based but have to do occasional site visits and trips to customers houses when problems arise. Not enough traveling to warrant a company car, but I need one none the less.

If I had a problem with some items I'd purchased from a plumbers merchant my main concern would be that the person who called round and solved my problem, not what vehicle they arrived in.
My car is a 1996 Mazda, starts every time, passed every MOT first time for the last 10 years. My occupation "Fleet Manager" for a large local authority, responsibility for over 750 vehicles. Main mode of transport a bicycle, remember about 6 years ago someone saying look at him the Fleet Manager and he rides about on a push bike, guess what, he's on a pushbike now can't afford the fuel to run his car