really daft question

When you say new do you mean brand new or new to you?

Depends who you are insured with, my company offeredto cover both cars for a month all be it the previous one 3rd party.

Depending on the car you are selling ....

New to me. It's a 3 yr old BMW. Why?

Insured with Tesco. Shall give them a ring.

Why does it depend? It's a 1997 BMW 3 series. Surely if they are not insured then it would be illegal to allow them to drive it. Is the norm just to take them out for a drive?

It would amaze you the number of times I have sold my old cars and the buyers didn't want a test drive!!

Cos when I had my 1st Brand new car, the dealer ensured I had insurance from a week before I picked up the car so that they could tax it, dealers will not let you leave the the dealership driving a car they sold illegally.

Cos depending on the car you get daft c*nts that just are interested in driving your car and have no intention of buying, so you put up hurdles eg bring your driving licence, insurance docs and proof of ability to buy, if it is a run around car then someone coming to look at it will be more after a car...

Ahh. Makes sense now. Many thanks.

Most car insurance covers driving another car with third party.

The message from "Zimmy" contains these words:

/Used/ to cover. Some firms have already withdrawn this cover, others are likely to follow.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, matt snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.co.uk scribed for want of a better word:

Extend the cover on your old car when you cover your new car, first I changed mine to new car then old car was not covered and they wanted £40pw for extended cover ffs my whole years cover was only £210. ended up unable to offer test drive as the car has to be insured before anyone who is insured can drive it Apparentley If you do it at the same time you can get four weeks cover on the old car as is, but if you do new car first then you have to pay for each week cover on the old car (ins rip off)

Just been through this with both our cars. CIS extend the cover on the old car for 1 week and then will cover for a fee beyond that, (£24 a month for Rover 620). AA gave "Her Indoors" two weeks cover on old car.

-- r

Usually only when the car is not owned by you, and is also subject to it's own insurance. However many companies do not offer even this any more.

Agreed, I think the OPs only option is to take out a second policy on the new car.

As for test drives, as somebody else mentioned, alot of insurance policies allow you to drive somebody else's car as long as a) you have their permission and b) it already has an insurance policy of its own (I think this is to stop people having multiple cars and just getting a policy on one to drive them all!) It is probably worth asking anybody who wants to test drive it if you can see their policy to check that it does indeed cover them. Also, bear in mind that they will usually only be insured third party - so if they write your car off you'll still be out of pocket!

Yes, just explain to your insurers what you are doing, and that you need to overlap the cover while the old car is up for sale. They might, or might not, charge depending on how long it takes/what their policy is etc.