Car insurance company says I can't add someone as temporary cover - even with a temp policy

Wellsy777

Hi folks, I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this for me because I am pretty confused. 

I have a multicar policy with Hastings Direct. My partner is driving down to Devon this weekend and our friend has offered to share the driving with him. I called Hastings this morning but they told me that with multicar they do not do temporary insurance. The only way of adding the friend is to add them as a permanent driver on our policy, which, for three days, seems excessive. 

I asked then if getting a temporary cover through a comparison website would be fine and they've told me no, because the car would be "dual insured". I am so confused - how else do temporary covers work? 

Can someone shed light on this - is that the case? 

Thanks,

DullGreyGuy

The car would be dual insured however one policy, the temp one, wont have a clause that says the insurance is nulled if another policy covers the same incident so you are fine. You will however be on the hook for ensuring they do indeed buy said insurance etc.

They are free to decide if they are willing to offer Temporary Additional Drivers (TAD) on their policies or not, if they dont they dont. You could ask them the price of permenantly adding the friend, assuming they've a clean history and an established driver it could well be the same price as what a TAD would have been and cheaper than a separate temp car insurance policy.

SaverRate

You can get add on policies e.g. Veygo (have used before) which are temporary policies. Hastings are getting confused with you having 2 full insurance policies. 

stuhse

Does the friend have his own  car,  because his own policy may cover him to drive other people's cars, they often do.  As said earlier, the cost of adding him for the rest of the term may not have been much anyway.

mgfvvc

stuhse said:

Does the friend have his own  car,  because his own policy may cover him to drive other people's cars, they often do.  As said earlier, the cost of adding him for the rest of the term may not have been much anyway.

Just bear in mind that if your friend has Driving Other Cars cover, it will be third party cover only. Your car will not be covered while he's driving it.

DullGreyGuy

SaverRate said:
Hastings are getting confused with you having 2 full insurance policies. 

Not really as you could have 10 full policies on your car if you really wanted to waste money. Despite what many will tell you there is nothing "illegal" about it but it does become a mighty headache when you come to make a claim because almost all, if not all, will have a "no cover if other insurance applies" clause which effectively gets nulled out if all say that but it takes time to work through it... even worse if your claim includes personal possessions and each policy has a different limit and different basis of settlement etc.

mgfvvc said:

stuhse said:

Does the friend have his own  car,  because his own policy may cover him to drive other people's cars, they often do.  As said earlier, the cost of adding him for the rest of the term may not have been much anyway.

Just bear in mind that if your friend has Driving Other Cars cover, it will be third party cover only. Your car will not be covered while he's driving it.

Most DOC covers are TPO however there are some MNW/HNW policies which give comp cover on DOC