Best way to insure an extra car for a few weeks? 11 August 2022 at 7:18PM in Motoring 6 replies 114 views

kmb500

I am taking a car from a friend this weekend and selling it on my friends behalf. So I'll have it for probably 2 weeks or however long it takes to sell it. What is the best way to insure myself? should I add it on to my current policy  (i have only 1 car on my insurance policy) and then remove it once I've sold it? Or is there a temporary insurance which could be cheaper? I know "temporary cover" (veygo etc) is very expensive.

any suggestions, thanks.

Grumpy_chap

Why are you selling the car on behalf of your friend?
That might ring alarm bells with any prospective purchaser.

However you do this, by the time extra costs around short-term insurance are deducted from the sale price (I assume your friend will cover these costs for you), plus advertising costs, you may find that it is quicker, easier, more secure and as financially rewarding to sell the car to a garage or car-buying service.

kmb500

Grumpy_chap said:

Why are you selling the car on behalf of your friend?
That might ring alarm bells with any prospective purchaser.

However you do this, by the time extra costs around short-term insurance are deducted from the sale price (I assume your friend will cover these costs for you), plus advertising costs, you may find that it is quicker, easier, more secure and as financially rewarding to sell the car to a garage or car-buying service.

Selling it because she found out two weeks ago that she's been accepted to an American university but she has to move there next week for start of term. So she has to get rid of all her possessions very quickly. I offered to deal with her car as she has never sold a car before and I've sold plenty. Its just one less thing for her to worry about.

But never sold a car on someone else's behalf. I assumed that its better for her to transfer ownership to me and then I sell it; I would have thought that keeping it in her name could cause issues if I'm trying to sell it and the owner is on the other side of the planet.

You may be right that it will be easier to sell it to a car buying service, and as I work for a car dealership I know a few people that trade cars (not my work though lol... her car is worth about £2k and we dont sell anything under £40k).  I'd normally get the most money by selling privately which is what I've done for every car I've ever owned. She bought the car last year so I'd like to get as close to what she paid for it as possible.

shinytop

If your policy allows you to drive other cars, the best thing to do would be to leave it in her name and keep her policy going until sold.  It shouldn't take much to convince a buyer it's genuine if a deal is done at your house. 

prowla

Previously when I've bought & sold one of my cars my insurance gave me a month's cover for the crossover period; not sure if that's applicable in this case.

Signing over the documents on the day of purchase could be an issue.

chrisw

shinytop said:

If your policy allows you to drive other cars, the best thing to do would be to leave it in her name and keep her policy going until sold.  It shouldn't take much to convince a buyer it's genuine if a deal is done at your house. 

Yes, I've never had a problem selling a car with someone else's name on the V5, whether to a dealer or privately. As it says, the registered keeper is not necessarily the owner anyway.

kmb500

shinytop said:

If your policy allows you to drive other cars, the best thing to do would be to leave it in her name and keep her policy going until sold.  It shouldn't take much to convince a buyer it's genuine if a deal is done at your house. 

Thanks, yeah this is what I'd do if I was already insured to drive other peoples cars. Unfortunately my policy doesn't have that as I purchased the cheapest insurance possible ("Admiral Essential") since car insurance is all a scam.