Need some advice - Car Insurance

darich

GoldyR wrote: »

Perhaps I have explained myself wrongly, what i meant was that there are alot of problems at the moment where young drivers are saying that they are the 'main user' of a vehicle, when it in fact belongs to their parents & they are the 'main user', in order to get cheaper insurance - this is not allowed & this is fact not 'incorrect advice'. Simply trying to help someone out so they don't get themselves in a pickle come claim time.....thanks for your rudeness. though.

This is known as "fronting" and is illegal and makes the policy invalid - in effect driving without insurance.

I posted this link just the other day in another post - makes for interesting reading for any youngster thinking of getting mummy or daddy to insure the car and allowing them to drive.
Just don't crash into me because your insurance may not pay out!

Labman_2

darich wrote: »

This is known as "fronting" and is illegal and makes the policy invalid - in effect driving without insurance.

darich

Read again what GoldyR actually says!

shelly

GoldyR wrote: »

Perhaps I have explained myself wrongly, what i meant was that there are alot of problems at the moment where young drivers are saying that they are the 'main user' of a vehicle, when it in fact belongs to their parents & they are the 'main user', in order to get cheaper insurance - this is not allowed & this is fact not 'incorrect advice'. Simply trying to help someone out so they don't get themselves in a pickle come claim time.....thanks for your rudeness. though.

Still wrong. What you actually mean is that young drivers are going onto parents policies as named drivers with their parent as main driver. When infact the young driver is the main user. This is fronting.
Who the car belongs to is of no consequence.

anewman

If it's a souped up clio, one option is sell it and get something a little more reasonable. The car itself makes a lot of difference to insurance cost.

I found https://www.ecarinsurance.co.uk cheap for me. Third party fire and theft was cheaper than third party only (not sure why) and fully comprehensive at the highest excess was cheaper still, but with the value of my car being not very much I went for TPFT.

Only answer to getting cheap insurance is to shop around. Many people will say one insurer is cheaper but it depends on your circumstances and when for me quotes ranged from something stupid like £3000 to £700 with not much difference in cover, you can see it pays to shop around. Some insurers people told me were/would be cheap were twice the price I paid. Use confused.com etc. Also try playing around with the quote by getting your dad added as a named driver, even if they do not drive the car. It can sometimes reduce the premium.

Try to think about how you will use the car. I added commuting to my policy but I don't use it for that as there's nowhere to park at university. At the time I thought as it only added something like £15 to the policy I mayaswell in case I happen to go one time and be unlucky enough to have an accident, or I got a job. Also, play around with the excess, think how much you'd be willing to lose in the event of a claim for cheaper insurance.

Also giving a lower estimate of mileage can help, it doesn't seem as if they check - although be careful, I am not advocating lying, just a small underestimate rather than a big overestimate. It can invalidate your policy if they can prove your mileage would be more. If you have an accident you may be quizzed and if you was on your way to work 20 miles away and you drive there and back, and you do this 5 days a week 48 weeks a year and use the car for other purposes including shopping then 5000 miles is going to be a severe underestimate and will stand out like a sore thumb. Also simply lying to police and insurers in the event of an accident to try account for inconsistencies in information you gave the insurers will invalidate any claim, leading to a mess. So there's no way around it, but that's the way it should be of course!

In some cases insurers will only allow the proposer to be insured if they are the registered keeper (the insurer will tell you if this is the case, it is the case with ecar). You can easily become the registered keeper straight away with the V5 and your mum and dad will still technically own it, if that's the way they prefer it.

Don't worry, you'll be on the road soon enough. And if you have the money on a debit card and find a good quote on the internet you could even be driving tomorrow.

cajef

GoldyR wrote: »

Perhaps I have explained myself wrongly, what i meant was that there are alot of problems at the moment where young drivers are saying that they are the 'main user' of a vehicle, when it in fact belongs to their parents & they are the 'main user', in order to get cheaper insurance - this is not allowed & this is fact not 'incorrect advice'. Simply trying to help someone out so they don't get themselves in a pickle come claim time.....thanks for your rudeness. though.

What you meant to say and what you actually said are two completely different things, people are not mind readers, and you have still got it wrong in this post.

I would suggest it would be better to check and get your facts straight before posting incorrect and misleading information.:rolleyes:

darich

Labman wrote: »

darich

Read again what GoldyR actually says!

I did - break it down...
GoldyR says
"young drivers are saying that they are the 'main user' of a vehicle," - this is true
"when it in fact belongs to their parents" - ownershhip is not an issue and this is unnecessary
"& they are the 'main user'" - with "they" meaning the parents - so the parents are the main users

So young drivers are claiming to be the main user of the vehicle when in actual fact their parents are and the parents are the main users.

It's badly worded and i actually re-wrote my post after reading it the way you did.
GoldyR is actually correct in this post even if the wording is poor.

darich

anewman wrote: »

I found www.ecarinsurance.co.uk cheap for me. Third party fire and theft was cheaper than third party only (not sure why) and fully comprehensive at the highest excess was cheaper still, but with the value of my car being not very much I went for TPFT.

TP insurance is cheaper because it covers damage to other cars and property only. Nothing else.
TPF&T covers the above but includes cover for fire damage or the theft of the vehicle.
Comprehensive is the most expensive because it covers all the above and your own vehicle. There are often other features included eg AA cover, Courtesy car, Windscreen cover etc.

anewman wrote: »

Third party fire and theft was cheaper than third party only (not sure why) and fully comprehensive at the highest excess was cheaper still, but with the value of my car being not very much I went for TPFT.

I think you have this mixed up a bit.
TP gives the least cover so is the cheapest, TPF&T gives slightly more and FC the most.
If you're right, then your circumstances must be exceptionally unusual. You also don't say how big the highest excess is - but to be fair it should be the same as the TP quote and TPF&T quote.
If you could get cheaper insurance with FC then why not opt for it? Was the excess way too much?

I'd also advise underestimating the mileage - in this day and age of injury claims, what used to be a minor knock costing a couple of hundred pounds, now costs several thousand when injuries are covered. If an insurance company needs a reason to not pay out, then you've conveniently provided them with one.

brazilianwax

When I worked in insurance it wasn't unusual at all for TP to be more expensive than TPF&T. I used to know why that was, but can't remember now.

And I read Goldy's post in the same way as others. It's confusing and unhelpful in my opinion.

The long and the short of it is that getting parents to insure a car with a child as a named driver, where the child is in fact the main driver, is called 'fronting' and can invalidate the cover.

anewman

darich wrote: »

I think you have this mixed up a bit.
TP gives the least cover so is the cheapest, TPF&T gives slightly more and FC the most.

I too assumed TP would be cheapest, but when I checked TPFT and saw it was cheaper (without changing any other details I add), I had to go for that. All I know otherwise is that if my car did not have an immobiliser (which it does so I declared it) TPFT would have cost more. I assume because without security equipment the risk of theft increases.

Didn't go for fully comp as the excess was higher than the value of my car (can't remember exactly the excess, could have been £1000). The insurer would have allowed me to go through with it online (although it seems some stop you as soon as they see the value of the car is lower than the excess). It wasn't a great deal cheaper, but I thought it would be better to do without the big excess.

darich

Unusual that TPF&T is cheaper but it shows that the value of the car plays a big part