Car insurance confusion

LotsaLuck

Hello, I'm very confused as to what to do and hope someone can help, please.

I bought a new car and insured it with Sheilas Wheels. In order to prove my No Claims Discount, I was asked to provide the letter of renewal from my old insurance company (Swinton), which I don't have because renewal isn't due until March..

I sold my old car today with three months of insurance left to pay to Swinton (£34 a month).

So do I call Swinton and cancel the insurance policy, as I no longer own the car? (Will I owe them the outstanding £34 x 3?) Will I be charged a cancellation fee? Will it be expensive? Am I better off just keeping the policy and paying for it til the end? Will I lose my NCD?

And if I don't cancel Swinton, how will I get NCD proof for Sheilas Wheels??

Aaah!

BenL

Why didn't you change the Swinton insurance over to the new car?

Your insurance is an annual agreement, the monthly payment is separate from a finance agreement. You will need to continue with this monthly payment.

If you cancel the Swinton policy you will likely owe them cancellation fees.

Ben

Quentin

If you have already taken out insurance with SW, then you have a problem regarding your NCD.

You can only use your NCD on one policy at a time, thus you had zero NCD available when you took out the new policy.

You will only have NCD from the date you cancel your existing policy, this won't be any use for your SW policy if it is already in force now.

SW will either cancel your policy when they discover this, or increase the premium to what you should have paid with nil NCD (probably plus admin fees as well).

The cheapest way out may be to cancel the SW policy now, put your new car on your existing policy and await renewal time before starting again.

LotsaLuck

Thanks all for your replies, they really were appreciated. I'm not very experienced in this kind of thing (as you can probably tell) but hey you live and learn. In case anyone else is reading this in the same situation, what happened was that I rang Swinton and asked them to transfer the existing policy to my new car, they said fine, that'll be £660 please (until MARCH!!!), so I thought I'd just carry on paying the policy until March and get a letter from them stating my No Claims Discount to send to Sheilas Wheels, I was told this isn't possible, not even if I pay for it, so in the end I simply rang Swinton, paid £30 to cancel the policy and they will send me cancellation documents (including NCD proof) in the next few days, so I'll be able to keep the Sheilas Wheels policy as it is. I'm aware that I've probably unwittingly broken some rules here, never again, but it's all straight now. Thanks.

thenudeone

If you no longer own the car you MUST cancel the policy on it.

If you don't, and the new owner doesn't insure it, and has an accident, YOUR insurer may have to pay out, under an obscure part of the law.

They will then claim the full cost of the claim back off you, because they are only liable because you have broken the terms and failed to cancel the policy and notify them that you no longer own the vehicle.

This is unlikely, but it could bankrupt you if it does happen.