What counts as "on the road at home"?

_Tom

Hi all,

Got what should be a reasonably simple question. Long story short, I'm a student who is likely to take their car up to uni with them next year. The house we are in doesn't have any dedicated parking directly outside it on the street, but I will be able to park my car on a street opposite our house, that is about a 30 second walk away and is nearly visible from my window. When looking up quotes I've been asked whether the car is kept "on the road at home" or "on the road away from home". When I've selected "on the road away from home" and put in the postcode of the nearby road, it's raised the cost of the insurance from around £1600 to £3400 and reduced the number of quotes I'm being shown meaning that most insurers won't cover me just because of this! I'm by no means wanting to commit fraud or provide false information, but would parking on the street that's nearly opposite our house fall under "on the road at home"? Here's a diagram to help explain what I'm talking about (unable to post links as a new user, so just replace the underscores with dots. Let me know if this isn't allowed and I'll remove it.) i_imgur_com/loxGkw5_png

Any help is greatly appreciated.

PDC

If I've read this right, presumably you are putting in the address where you are living now to get these quotes while the address you will be at uni is a different one? Hence the price difference in quotes I'm guessing. So while you could insure and say you were parking at the road at home now, when you do move you would have to let the insurers know the change of address and I would imagine from what you've said putting in the nearby postcode, the premium might change. Unless I've misunderstood.

There might be some difference if the uni address isn't a permanent address and only term time - But the only people who could advise on that would be the individual insurers I would think.

tacpot12

"On the road at home" would normally mean on the street where your house is. If you declare that you are parking "on the road at home" and your car is written off while parked in the next street, the insurance company will question why it was not parked outside your house and may figure out that parking there is not possible. This could lead to problems getting insurance in the future, so it's not really worth it.

I would suggest you speak to an insurance broker to see if they can find you an insurer who will not charge the earth for you to park in the next street.

_Tom

Nope - I'll be buying up the insurance when I leave for uni - I'm only shopping around at the moment to get an idea of price. When looking up quotes I put in the address of the house that we'll be staying in next year, not my address from home, as I'll be at uni around 46 weeks out of 52 a year. Hence why the huge price leap seems so ridiculous - it's genuinely just a 30 second walk out of the door and across the road to where I was planning on parking.

PDC

Ah, okay, was unsure from your post.

I would take "On the road at home" to mean somewhere on the road near to your address and "on the road away from home" that you spend most of the time travelling so you car could be parked anywhere.

No idea if that is how the insurers classify them though. 'At Home' doesn't say directly outside your home and how many people living in busy streets can guarantee parking outside their house. As per the poster above, the only ones to clarify really are the insurers.

Craig1981

i live on a main road with double yellows outside - parking permits are for the neighbouring streets, which i do qualify for. i used the option "on the road at home". had to claim last year for someone hitting me while parked, was no issues with the address of the accident, which is different to the house address

i would however check with any insuerer you plan on buying form first

stator

Start with the cheapest insurer and phone them up and ask.

If they say "we don't know" etc then ask them to check with the underwriters.
If they say no, keep asking the next cheapest.
You will find one eventually I think