Short term car insurance

BoudiccaUK

Hi,

My son is 21 and has had his own car and insurance since the end of April 2012. Sometime in May this year he will be moving abroad for 12 months and so will be selling his car.

He wants to hang on to his car long enough to make sure he gets his first year no claims bonus so wants to sell just after his insurance ends. However we aren't sure how to manage the short time between his insurance ending and him selling it. (However long it takes to sell).

I'm presuming it needs some kind of insurance even if he doesn't drive it and we keep it on our drive. Also prospective buyers may want to test drive it.

Short term insurance looks really expensive and long term have cancellation charges. Also what is the insurance situation with people test driving a car? I'm presuming that they need to have their own insurance that allows them to drive another car 3rd party?

Any ideas / enlightenment welcome.

Thanks!

rs65

Probably best to renew, and then cancel when the time comes - particularly as you don't know how long it will take to sell.

If its kept on private land without being insured it needs to be declared SORN.

Anyone test driving it needs to have their own insurance unless he adds them to his insurance on a temporary basis. Not ideal as it will incur cost and needs full disclosure of their personal details, convictions, claims etc..

If they drive under their 'driving other cars' extension, they will only be 3rd party and therefore not insured for damage to his car. Not all policies have 'DOC' extension. Could he drive during a test drive and maybe give them a shot in an industrial park if need be?

What about the likes of 'we buy any car'. That way he gets certainty of when it goes but maybe not the price he wants.

flyingscotno1

BoudiccaUK wrote: »

Hi,

My son is 21 and has had his own car and insurance since the end of April 2012. Sometime in May this year he will be moving abroad for 12 months and so will be selling his car.

He wants to hang on to his car long enough to make sure he gets his first year no claims bonus so wants to sell just after his insurance ends. However we aren't sure how to manage the short time between his insurance ending and him selling it. (However long it takes to sell).

I'm presuming it needs some kind of insurance even if he doesn't drive it and we keep it on our drive. Also prospective buyers may want to test drive it.

Short term insurance looks really expensive and long term have cancellation charges. Also what is the insurance situation with people test driving a car? I'm presuming that they need to have their own insurance that allows them to drive another car 3rd party?

Any ideas / enlightenment welcome.

Thanks!

If it is off the road completely you can SORN it. Then you won't need tax or insurance, however any damage that happens is at your own risk and you can't use it on the road till you have new tax and insurance.

If anyone else wants to test drive it (assuming it's not SORNed) they will need to show you their insurance!

If you do want to keep it insured and on road, then I guess it's researching the policies with the lowest cancellation charges. Short term insurance is only really good for covering a few days/a week in my view.

I had it on one car I was due to pick up from the garage due to a small gap in cover. It cost me £22 for the day with huge excesses (windscreen chip repair was £350!)

Aretnap

If it's kept on a private drive rather than a public road it doesn't have to be insured provided he makes a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN). This normally means handing in the tax disc for a refund, which in turn makes driving it for the odd day a bit complicated, even if you get day insurance. Not sure if you can SORN it, hang onto the tax disc, and then unSORN it and get day insurance for the days you want to use it/test drive it. If the car is not SORNed the it must be insured, whether or not it actually gets used on the road, or the keeper commits an offence under the new continuous insurance requirements, which make life a right pain in the bum for anyone in this situation.

If it is going to be sitting on a drive but he still wants to protect it against fire, theft etc you can get laid-up insurance, which covers you against such things, but not against anything to do with road accidents. It doesn't count as insurance for the purposes of the Road Traffic Act so the car would still have to be SORNed.

Test driving is another tricky thing. Any test drivers will have to be insured either under his policy or more likely the driving other vehicles cover provided by their own policy. If they're using their own policy he should insist on checking that it does cover them, as he can be charged with causing or permitting someone to drive without insurance, and the penalty is the same as if he drove without insurance himself - at least 6 points and a hefty fine. He needs to check the small print carefully as many policies restrict driving other vehicles cover these days - some restrict it to people over 25, and importantly many (most?) restrict it to vehicles which also have their own policy, so if he doesn't maintain third party insurance of his own, not many test drivers will be allowed to drive it on their own policies.

All in all it's a bit of a pain and I'm not sure what the cheapest solution is - I'm starting to see why people end up taking their cars to wegiveyouapitifulpriceforanycar.com.

forgotmyname

Short term insurance is quite expensive, So take the full policy and cancel maybe cheaper.

Especially if you dont know how long he will have the car. £20 - £40 a day?

A private motorists insurance may not cover your car if its uninsured. Mine states this now. My driving other cars section now states the owner must have valid insurance for the vehicle.

Also their insurance will only cover it 3rd party, So if they crash it and its their fault you get nothing.

BoudiccaUK

Wow, this is a mine field! I've been looking on other sites too and all the answers are different. The main points that seem to be clear so far:

1) It needs to be insured if not SORN. We don't want to SORN it as this will make it more difficult to sell quickly.
2) Short term is only interesting if we know how many days - but we don't know how long it will take to sell.

Obviously I'm going to need to check cancellation charges as a priority. I'll also ring my own insurance and see if I can add it to mine temporarily or something. I suspect his won't extend the insurance temporarily (it's one of those smart box companies) but I'll ask.

He's not worried if he can't drive it for a couple of weeks before he goes but it needs to be insured and someone be able to drive it to be able to sell it. I think me (or him) driving it to some industrial park or empty car park and letting the person have a quick go to test gears etc is probably the way to go for a test drive - unless they want to pay £30 for temporary insurance.

Probably worth looking at the buy any car places and looking how much we'd lose in terms of what we'd get selling privately and weighing that up with what we'd lose on insurance and the hassle of selling. It's a rather cool looking orange Smart Forfour if anyone is interested!

Hintza

If it was me I would sell it before the insurance ran out, then just let the insurance run, try to judge it well so be realistic on price.

Aretnap

Be wary of idea of test-driving it without insurance in an empty car park. If the car park is open to the public then even if it's privately owned it's still a public place and insurance is required. The chances of getting caught may be slim, but the consequences would be the same as if it was a public road.

BoudiccaUK

Hintza wrote: »

If it was me I would sell it before the insurance ran out, then just let the insurance run, try to judge it well so be realistic on price.

This isn't an option I'm afraid as he has one of those smart boxes fitted. If we sold it to an idiot he could end up paying a premium.

BoudiccaUK

Aretnap wrote: »

Be wary of idea of test-driving it without insurance in an empty car park. If the car park is open to the public then even if it's privately owned it's still a public place and insurance is required. The chances of getting caught may be slim, but the consequences would be the same as if it was a public road.

True. I will need to check either that their insurance covers them driving it or they take out a one day cover.

Another VERY annoying development. I just got an online quote from my own insurer. I filled in all the boxes correctly. I put that I would be the insured party but that the registered owner was "other" (they didn't have the option for son). I didn't use my no claims bonus as that is used on my own car and can only be used on one car. The quote was £450 and the cancellation policy after 14 days was they would return any unused portion -£29.50 fee. So about £70 for a month - sounds ok.
HOWEVER I decided to telephone just to clarify things. I explained the situation and straight off he said we won't insure it if it's your son's car. I said that I had got a quote online and filled it in correctly that I wouldn't be the registered owner/keeper but I would be the driver and that I had selected the option "other" as there was no option for son. Then he said and we wouldn't insure it either because you have told us it is just for one month and we only do annual policies so it's not in our interest!

You try to do things legally and properly and this is what you get! :mad:

thenudeone

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

If anyone else wants to test drive it (assuming it's not SORNed) they will need to show you their insurance!

If anyone was to test drive it, it would be worth asking them to sign a very short agreement stating that they are insured and that they understand that your consent to drive the car is conditional upon them being insured.

If it turns out they weren't insured it will put you in a very strong position.

The police will probably love it because they can then prosecute the other driver for a nice juicy TWOC.