Second-hand car insurance cover

get it insured before it is driven, or get the previous owner to deliver it.

Consider buying 24hr cover to start around the time you expect to arrive there. For the sake of £15/20 you can happily / safely / legally drive home.

Plenty of firms out there, here's some to get you started.

I have this 'insured to drive any car I don't own' clause, but IIRC it's third party only.

Always struck me as a little odd and uncharacteristically generous - given the potential risk and insurance company loss, why might they include this clause at all?

Rob

I've seen other people suggesting that recent policies only insure them to drive cars that are otherwise insured for the owner to drive.

It depends on your insurer, Norwich Union & Elephant both used to give you

It's normally only 3rd party cover & so not that expensive. I've always turned down policys that don't include it.

My policy has a cross over point for just this reason. It allows me to drive old and new car for 14 days.

On one of the many ?Cop? shows on tv a driver was busted because the car he was driving had no insurance shown for it even though the drivers policy, which he had with him, covered him to drive cars not belonging to him. best check with your insurance comp before risking driving it.

Perhaps things have changed radically, but I recall one policy which said that I had 7 days to advise the insurer of a change of vehicle.

I thought the case was that the "Third Party" cover for "someone elses" car is only valid if that "someone elses" car was already insured.

If the "someone elses" car is not insured then your insurance clause is invalid.

Does that make sense?

Cheers

Peter

No.

It's been done to death here and elsewhere.

It's entirely dependent on the individual insurer; some require the other car to be insured, others don't. You need to read the policy details (or ring them) to be sure.

None of which helps the OP of course.

Chris

In 50 years of motoring, I have always understood that the 'driving another vehicle' clause only applied if the other vehicle was at least road-legal (ie it already had its own minimal insurance cover). This meant that the owner of another car, whose insurance was 'named drivers' only, and you weren't one named, could allow you to drive his car. The one thing you certainly could not do was to hop into any old vehicle and drive it away.

That said, at one time, one of my insurers did indeed allow you to buy (note 'BUY' - not 'BORROW') another car (which would then be uninsured) and simply drive it away. They did so by explicitly not 'naming' the car covered by your insurance.

While this insurance wasn't intended to cover more than one car, the insurers would allow you to retain cover on your existing car (for a week or so, at no additional charge) until you had disposed of it - provided that only one car was used on the roads at any one time. You also had to provide details of the 'new' car, and inform them when you had got rid of the old one. To me, that seemed an eminently sensible way of doing things - but probably couldn't be used today because it would totally screw up the MIB database.

Ring the insurance company before and ask nicely. Last time I changed cars, I rang my company (LV) and told them I was keeping my old car for a few weeks, while the buyer got the money together. I knew the buyer was going to pay up, so had no worries other than keeping it insured. The company said they'd cover both cars for two weeks, at no additional cost. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement, but it'd certainly cover the situation here by having both cars covered.

Sometimes the best option is ringing the company and asking nicely :-)

Perhaps you should try reading your insurance policy. That's neverbeen a term on any policy I've held.

In the past, there have indeed been variations on this between different companys - some allowing a "overlap", some not specifying a vehicle, etc.

But the recent paranoia and "need" for MIB database has, indeed, stopped insurance cos from offering this valuable facility.

I tend to make sure that any changeover occurs during office hours, then I can make a phone call and have the insurance put in place as soon as I take delivery of the vehicle.

I only have 49 years of motoring experience, but I've *never* had a condition imposed on any policy (that allowed me to drive a vehicle not owned by me) to be somehow covered by any other policy.

If you define "any old vehicle" as something that is road legal in every other respect, then yes, I can, and always have been able, to hop into it and drive it away.

If you were doing this now, with ANPR and the MIB database, it would be very sensible to carry the insurance certificate with you, and some form of photographic ID.

Chris

john ryan set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:

Most insurance that I know say something like "The insured may drive a motor vehicle not belonging to him or not hired under

Could you "post-date" the purchase? There might be an element of risk for the seller, but he'll be holding the cash.

Assuming you have another car that's legal to drive, you could ask the seller to deliver it, do the deal, then drive them home in your old car which will still be legally insured.

Theo