Car insurance - when to cancel

MrMagic

For the last few years i've been driving a very old vehicle and there's finally a critical fault with it so its not worth repairing. SORN has been completed and the vehicle is currently in the possession of a garage I know well. 

I know a vendor well, and they are currently sourcing a particular vehicle for me. It may take a little while and I'm not in a rush. I'm probably looking at another 4 weeks, at a guess.

I am obliged to pay a fee plus I wouldn't want not having insurance for a period of time to affect my no claims - if it does turn out to be much longer.

I see nothing in my policy which obliges me to cancel my insurance (unless I'm missing something), but just wondering if there is a point where one generally becomes obliged to do so? Has anyone been in a similar position?

GrumpyDil

Have you asked your insurance company if they can suspend your insurance? Pretty sure I managed to do that a couple of years ago? 

400ixl

The is no obligation to cancel your insurance, and potentially you need some cover. If the car is now at a garage would they be covering it for fire & theft? Do you need that cover on that vehicle?

Your No Claims will typically remain valid for 2 years between policies, so that should not be an issue if you do cancel the policy.

There is also what they call laid up insurance which is designed for cars which are not being driven but require the fire and theft cover. It may be your current insurer may be able to drop the level to this.

Bigphil1474

OP, you say the car is at a garage - is it still your car? If so, you might want to keep the insurance going until you have a replacement as the cost of cancelling it might be more (admin fees normally). Alternatively, if the car is no longer yours, then really you should let the insurers know that - when you find the time of course. As above, don't worry about your no claims bonus as this usually lasts for up to 2 years. If you want to gain another year from the current policy it would need to get to the end of the year. 

Personally, I'd wait for the new car to appear, then ring the insurers and tell them you wan to change the vehicle, or if it's cheaper, just take out a new policy on the new car.

DullGreyGuy

There will be obligations to inform your insurers if certain things change, like you sell the vehicle, the insurer will then confirm if they are willing to continue to provide cover and at what cost. 

The risk you run at the moment is that your insurers remain the RTA Insurers of vehicle and so if there were to be an accident involving your vehicle and the driver of your vehicle has no other insurance then your insurance has to pay. As presumably the person won't be a named driver on your policy the insurer then has a right of recovery from the driver but also potentially from you if they can show you consented to them driving it.

Whilst at the garage this is a low risk and most of us take it when we drop cars off for service etc however if the car is sold then you've lost all control of the situation and the risk increases. Obvs still small probability but we had two cases of it happening to forum members here last year with one now repaying over £30,000 because they didn't want to pay the £75 cancellation fee.