Insuring a car that doesn't exist

onomatopoeia99

davemorton wrote: »

Could you not buy a scooter for a couple of hundred quid, and then insure that for a year to get a years no claims (presuming the insurance company you use accepts scooter no claims on a car).

Or a moped, doesn't even have to run as its purpose is NCD accumulation, not to be used, and you can get basket cases, sorry "barn finds" in current terminology, for very little.

neilmcl

TonyMMM wrote: »

A friend of mine did this many years ago - whilst he was away at university in the 1980s he insured a 20 yr old mini he "owned" under the cheapest third party only cover he could find. The car did exist but only as a pile of rusted parts at the back of a shed at his parents house and never moved or saw the road in any of the years he insured it, but when he graduated he had 4 years no claims built up.

Not sure it would be quite that easy these days.

If your friend was not fully truthful in the statements he made, which I suspect he wasn't, then no matter how you slice it he too would have been committing fraud at the time.

There is/was such a thing as a "laid up" insurance cover for vehicles never driven but these have to be garaged and I'm not sure if they count towards your NCD.

Richard53

davemorton wrote: »

Could you not buy a scooter for a couple of hundred quid, and then insure that for a year to get a years no claims (presuming the insurance company you use accepts scooter no claims on a car).

I've had a motorbike and a car (sometimes more than one of each) on the go at the same time, and I have never been able to use the NCD from a car against a bike policy, or vice versa. I assume the insurance industry treats them as separate entities.

Herzlos

1. If you insure a random car, and it has an accident, you'll likely be liable for it.
2. You want to pay for insurance a year early, to save money on insurance? Just pay it when it's due.

Zola.

Jackmydad

I realised a long time ago that the best way of dealing with everything vaguely "official" in this life is to keep it all legal and above board.
If you don't, it invariably comes back to bite you in the arris at some time in the future.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

Nobbie1967

neilmcl wrote: »

If your friend was not fully truthful in the statements he made, which I suspect he wasn't, then no matter how you slice it he too would have been committing fraud at the time.

There is/was such a thing as a "laid up" insurance cover for vehicles never driven but these have to be garaged and I'm not sure if they count towards your NCD.

You may want to insure a currently off road car so that you can tow it to a garage at some point in the future and get it repaired. If you don't get round to it, where's the fraud. I don't think buying insurance for a car obliges you to drive it.

neilmcl

Nobbie1967 wrote: »

You may want to insure a currently off road car so that you can tow it to a garage at some point in the future and get it repaired. If you don't get round to it, where's the fraud. I don't think buying insurance for a car obliges you to drive it.

The fraud is where you deliberately state that you own and drive a car for x number of miles when you clearly wont be driving it, and never had any intention of doing so, obviously.

onomatopoeia99

neilmcl wrote: »

The fraud is where you deliberately state that you own and drive a car for x number of miles when you clearly wont be driving it, and never had any intention of doing so, obviously.

They ask for an estimate of mileage, because none of us can see the future. Unless on a limited mileage policy it's not checked. Further, one can estimate that the vehicle will be fixed and on the road during the insured term so will do some miles, but this never actually happen.

My camper is insured with an estimated 3,000 miles/year. It's done zero in the last two years , due to being broken and me being too lazy to fix it. Direct Line haven't been sending threatening letters at me for not using it, or indeed not even getting an MOT for it, nor would I expect them to. I want it insured for road use so when I decide to get it to an MOT it's already insured and ready to go, and I don't mind the £14/month it costs me to keep it insured.

neilmcl

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

They ask for an estimate of mileage, because none of us can see the future. Unless on a limited mileage policy it's not checked. Further, one can estimate that the vehicle will be fixed and on the road during the insured term so will do some miles, but this never actually happen.

There's a world of difference between making a reasonable estimate and intentionally misleading. What bit of that do you not get!

Just because someone hasn't been caught out doesn't mean they haven't been fraudulent.