Additional Driver advice

SRRAE

Hello,

I'm looking for advice regarding additional driver. Every year I add my wife to my policy just for convenience if anything, should there ever be a time she needs to use it. I've also heard adding your spouse should bring down your premium. She has her own car and is fully comp insurance.

She very occasionally drives my car. At the most she may use it once every two months to travel very short distances because her car is blocked in or we car swap so I can take hers for MOT/Garage etc. She actually doesn't like driving my car.

Last year her car was written off because she scraped a wall at very difficult turning, which unfortunately resulted in the car being written off. Renewing my insurance, I updated the details to include my wife's claim and it is significantly raised the premium to around the the £500 mark. I completely removed my wife and its drops to just under £400. Its a 25% increase

Under her own policy she is able to drive another car, third party only, within the conditions of her policy. However, I don't know exactly what cover she will have under those circumstances. If she has a accident while driving my car on her insurance, the third party will cover damage to others but will this also cover the repairs to my car?

Herzlos

The drive other car clause almost never covers cars belonging to the same household or a partner.

It's intended for rare emergency use, rather than for cars they have regular access to.

AdrianC

Other Car clauses are always third-party only, so - no - it won't cover damage to your car.

Depending on the exact wording, it may not even cover a car owned within the household.

SRRAE

Cool, thanks for the advice. She can pay for the increase

Lucky_Duck_2

Herzlos wrote: »

The drive other car clause almost never covers cars belonging to the same household or a partner.

No such exclusion on my policy. However the warning about it being third part only in this thread remains.

Sea_Shell

Would your wife even still have a policy if her car was written off and not replaced. Does the policy not cancel automatically under those circumstances?

SRRAE

Sea_Shell wrote: »

Would your wife even still have a policy if her car was written off and not replaced. Does the policy not cancel automatically under those circumstances?

It was her car on her insurance several months ago. She's got a new car and new policy since then

Sea_Shell

Ah, right. Out of interest was her new insurance bumped up by as much because of the accident. Although insurers are all different, you'd think both policies, with both drivers would be effected similarly by the incident.

unforeseen

AdrianC wrote: »

Other Car clauses are always third-party only, so - no - it won't cover damage to your car.

Depending on the exact wording, it may not even cover a car owned within the household.

That is changing. Esure withdrew that exclusion last year and others are or have followed suit