Temporary cover vs new policy & cancellation

B0bbyEwing

Right now we've 3 cars.

A - mine (V5C in my name, insurance policy in my name)

B - wifes (wifes name, wifes name - as above)

C - new one which will be wifes

Car A - mine, needs to be sold. Once that happens I can start looking for a replacement for what is car B right now (which I'll have once mine goes).

Only giving the above info because people always seem to want more info.

Wife will need new car basically from 1st March. A temp insurance quote comes back as £121 for 2 week.

A new policy completely though, with 0yrs NCDs (since her existing policy is on Car B), comes in at £28/month.

Now having never paid up a 'full/proper' policy monthly before, is it possible to just take out this new policy, run it for however long you want. 1 month, 2 month whatever & then just cancel it & sort out the insurance once the next replacement car is bought (since who knows when Car A will sell)?

Or are you still signed up for 12 months & you've got to pay it up?

I feel like it's one of them dumb questions & that the answer should be you cancel whenever you like & pay no more than what you've already paid but I want to be sure so I'll go ahead & ask a dumb question.

facade

If you cancel within 14 days of the date you purchase (the cooling off period) you pay only for the number of days cover that you had.

If you cancel outside of that (1 month, 2 months etc.) then you are reliant on the policy terms about cancellation, which should be stated in the policy documents.

Usually with the big names you pay a "cancellation fee" possibly another "admin fee" and for the cover that you used, so you could end up being charged a considerable sum on top of the payments that you already made.

(The very cheapest may have somewhat more punitive terms in their contract)

Paying monthly is actually a credit agreement for a loan of the full policy price, paid back over 12 monthly instalments, so there is interest and an arrangement fee in there..

If you paid the whole premium up front you would be due a refund less admin fees and time used.

Obviously this assumes that there are no "incidents", any claim (including a windscreen) or pending claim would require the full policy price paid up, and there would be no refund.

Bigphil1474

You seem to be making this as complicated as possible. When wife gets new car, transfer her existing policy to new car. You then transfer your policy to car B, sell car A. There may be an admin fee for changing cars. The NCB is with the insured not the car, only reason it wouldn't move with your wife is if she had 2 cars insured at the same time.

You could temp insure Car A until sold, or just offload to WBAC or Highway type companies.

Woodstok2000

Be careful with a monthly policy in this scenario. As noted above, after 14 days you would need to check both the policy terms and the finance terms to see what fees are payable.

Mildly_Miffed

Always remember - you aren't buying a "monthly policy". You're buying an annual policy and a finance product (a loan) to pay it off monthly.

That annual policy will certainly have a way to cancel it part-way through. Within a fortnight, they can only charge you setting-up fees plus pro-rata premium. Outside that fortnight, they can add cancellation charges to that.

All of those fees will be specified up front, so you can work out before buying the policy whether it'll be cheaper than temporary insurance.

Other things to consider:
Will your current policy add the other car as a temporary addition for a nominal fee? They often do, for precisely these overlap situations.
What happens if it takes longer than a fortnight to sell the car?

Herzlos

Talk to wifes insurance company and see if they'll let her insure B and C until A sells. and B becomes yours.

Or just trade A in for C.

Or why not just replace the wifes car with her new car instead of doing the shuffling?.

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81887762#Comment_81887762

Just at work but briefly replying to this one as I find it to be the least helpful suggestion.

In your scenario my car (the one to be sold) is either left uninsured or given away.

No thanks.

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81887923#Comment_81887923

Can't trade A for C.

As said in the OP - we have 3 cars so we have A, B & C. We're not looking for C because then that'd be having 2 cars.

Also don't want to let the wife's car go. It's a £400 car that still runs although has its issues.

Mines a £2000 ticking time bomb which could sell for £2k or near it right now but if things go wrong then it could quickly be worth scrap (without getting in to the details too much).

Hence I want to sell it while it's worth what it's worth rather than wait for it to become scrap.

- also I'm fully aware that many of you refer to £2k as scrap anyway.

My scrap is different. When I say scrap I mean actual scrap value not just lower than what I'd usually spend on a car.

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81887813#Comment_81887813

Will have her contact her insurance to see what they say.

jimjames

I've needed to do similar recently. Taking out new policy or adding to an existing were similar but new policy doesn't have the time restriction that adding to existing one as a temp vehicle did. In the end the car sold in just over a month and cost around £45 for that time on a new policy with £25 cancellation fee. Keeping for longer would have been proportionally cheaper

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81887813#Comment_81887813

She contacted her existing insurance.

They want £500.

A total new policy via gocompare is £280 at the cheapest, £300 at the next cheapest.