Buying Car from Dealer, 7 Days Insurance Offered, Potential Insurance Overlap

SavvyStudentSaver

Hi everyone

I've just bought a car from a dealer, and they will be delivering it to my house at some point over the next few days. They've said they'll insure the car for the first 7 days so I can drive it as soon as I get it, and I can sort things out. However, they've warned me that as a young driver, the excesses would be fairly high, and have advised I insure the car myself ASAP.

Ideally, I'd like to reinstate my own insurance when I get the car (I recently had a car written off after a motorway accident that was not my fault, hence buying the new car- and the insurance will expire at the same time next year regardless of when I reinstate it), but I don't know when that will be.

I've also got the impression I shouldn't insure the car for before it's delivered, but as I don't know when delivery will be I don't know when to insure it for. And if it's delivered at short notice, I'm worried I wont have chance to insure it first, so it would seem a good idea to agree to the 7 days insurance.

If I did this though, and then reinstated the insurance after I'd got the car within those 7 days, then wouldn't that mean having overlapping insurance policies. I'm fairly sure that having both policies at the same time is illegal from other posts here, so I'm not sure what to do regarding taking out the 7 days extra insurance.

I may be making a big deal out of nothing though- so many things have happened so quickly recently that I'm in a bit of a tizzy and I'm just waiting for the next thing to go wrong (and I don't ant it to be a problem of my own making). Any advice would be useful, and I'd be very grateful.

(I'm sure it's not as complicated as it seems to me, but it's the not knowing when the car will be dropped off that gets me- when my hire car was dropped off I got about an hours notice and I wasn't even in the same city any more so couldn't be there to sort anything, and I'm convinced the same thing will happen with this car).

Apologies for the rambling, I can edit this if it's unclear, but I'm just trying to get the thought process out of my head and on to the screen.

forgotmyname

Decline the free insurance and cover it on your own policy. Whilst they deliver it the cover will be on their trade policy anyway.

The free insurance offer is just a freebie to get your details and they hope you use them to get further insurance. Sometimes it can exclude commuting to and from work and as they mentioned the excess could be as much as your cars worth.

AdrianC

It isn't illegal to have your own insurance on a car that's got a "free" short-term policy also covering it. You can't, obviously, claim under both - but I really wouldn't worry about it.

colino

Just get your own insurance sorted out for the time you agree you have bought it. The Aviva 7 day free insurance is a great way of lazy buyers to drive their new purchase away and just stick with them as their insurers.

SavvyStudentSaver

Thanks for the replies guys. It seems I may just be making a mountain out of a molehill, and should just insure it myself anyway.

With my previous car, I signed all of the paperwork when I picked the car up, so it was fairly clear when it became 'mine', and I was able to insure the car from the time that I made that appointment.

But in this case, I signed the paperwork on Tuesday, but it hasn't been signed by the dealer yet that I know of (I signed the paperwork at a branch near my house, but it had to be sent back to an office where I viewed the car 60 miles away for them to sign). When would the car become classed as owned by me? (My theory was when it's delivered, but that date and time is similarly up in the air, hence confusion)

I may just call the dealer and ask, it's just the person dealing with the sale has gone on a training course so we couldn't contact him.