Single or common law - how do you answer marital status for car insurance quotes?

Reformed

I am filling in the confused.com questions for some car insurance quotes and under marital status I'm not sure whether I qualify as single or common law - I'm not married - am living with my partner - how does the way this is answered affect a car insurance quote.

Optimist

Reformed wrote: »

I am filling in the confused.com questions for some car insurance quotes and under marital status I'm not sure whether I qualify as single or common law - I'm not married - am living with my partner - how does the way this is answered affect a car insurance quote.

It depends on the question but there is no such thing as a common law wife/husband so technically your single.

Cherimoya

Reviving an old thread since I have exactly this same problem right now and am yet to find an answer.

I am aware that legally there is no such thing as "common law marriage" and hence no precise definition. But yet, all the car insurance brokers and screenscrapers I've used include it on their marital status options. And I've discovered that whether I select it or not can make a huge difference; I'd like to get my long term boyfriend insured as a second driver on my car, if I put us down as "single" and "unrelated" then the quote is £760. If I put the relationship as "common law marriage" then the quote is £250. So clearly it means something to the to the insurers, but I can't tell how to work out if we qualify or not. Does anyone know?

Turtle

Why don't you ring them and check? Common law still exists in Scotland but it seems pretty unlikely that you'd get the cheaper quote if you were Scottish!

dacouch

Do you live together?

Cherimoya

Not right now but we've bought a house together which we're renovating and will be moving into in a couple of months.

I believe it might be the living together thing, in which case, I wish they would make that clear, so I could just hold off buying insurance until after we've moved in. Previously I phoned and they told me that that the quote was so high because my boyfriend is male and under 30 (he's 25), rather than pointing out it would be much lower with the change in living arrangements.

Turtle, I am considering contacting them but I would like to do so in such a way that will get me a clear answer on what the definition is... although maybe I'm hoping too much :rolleyes:

alwaysonthego_2

If you do not live together then you will be classed as sinlge, but when you moved in together LTAHAW you will be classed as common law (but not by the law as there is not such thing in England)

Cherimoya

Ah, thanks for that alwaysonthego. How did you find out, do you work in the industry?

alwaysonthego_2

I do not work in the insurance industry but I work helping clients with benefits and debt and this is the definition that we work with.