Any Insurance Experts?

[Region3]

This is complicated (to me) so I hope I explain it ok.

Person A has a car, and is insured until August. He wants to get rid of it and use the money for something else.
His insurance was ridiculous, about £2,600. If he sells the car and cancels the policy they will give him back about £500.
If he tells them the car is no longer on the road but keeps it and changes his policy to only cover it being parked off road they'll give him back £1,200.

For a start, that sounds crazy to me, but I guess they've got huge cancellation charges. Obviously he's better financially to keep the car on a drive until August and get £700 more, but he needs the money for something else.

Person B needs a car and is willing to buy person A's car but person A will lose £700 if he sells and cancels the insurance policy.

Here (at long last!) is my question.

I know it's illegal to have 2 insurance policies covering the same car, but if person A changes his cover to the 'laid up' policy so it isn't covered on the road, can person B insure the car for him to drive on the road?

Sorry for the long-winded question, I hope it makes sense.

 

[0]

If i am reading this correctly .............

If person A who owns the car sells the car to person b, person A can no longer have a policy on the car as it no longer belongs to him so therefore he has no insurable interest on the vehicle.

Eg If you take life insurance out on your wife - you have an insurable interest in her eg mortgage, family etc.
If you think i know so and so is old or ill so i will take out a life insurance policy on him so it pays out they will say no as you have no insurable interest in that person.

All motor insuers now share details of insurance on vehicles with each other and the police.

If person A sells the vehicle and keeps the policy going eg cover off the road and then person B insurers it duplicate entries are allowed as sometimes insurers take a few weeks to update the joint database.
The fun would start if person B tried to make a claim as they would then check and see person A still had a policy running.
Finally person A may affect person b's chance of gettng paid out if anything happened eg the car was stolen.

I know what you are saying and you may get away with it if no one claims but if person B does make a claim then it called get very very nasty depending upon the insurance companies involved.

BTW most laid up policies would insist on the vehicle being kepy in a locked garage. So if person B gets it knicked from a pub then no one may get paid out

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Most Insurance companies share information
also it gets put on the DVLA computer so the fuzz can check if a vehicle is covered.

I think that 2 policies on the same car would set bells ringing somewhere

Generally with insurance, its best not to play around, because they will try any trick available to weasle out of coughing up, so you have to play it straight down the line

Fragger

 

[madandra]

IIRC you cannot insure a car if you are not the registered keeper and if A tells his insurance its SORNed then if B has a bump you are all in the brown stuff.

 

[0]

BTW forgot to mention that if person B is driving the car and the police ANPR cameras pick up the reg and they see the insurance comes as laid up then person B could spend a lot of time being pulled over by the bill.

 

[Region3]

Yeah, I see where you're all coming from.

Definitely don't want to do anything remotely dodgy. I was just thinking that the insurance policies would be covering different things, albeit on the same vehicle.

Person B wouldn't be buying the car if person A kept his insurance policy as 'laid up'.

I'm talking about my 2 sons. The one with the car wants to sell it and get a bike. The other one wants to buy a car, but I'll be damned if the first one is going to lose out on £700 just to cancel his policy.

 

[Region3]

If anyone has any bright ideas about how to solve it I'm all ears.

I've suggested to my lad that he rings the insurance company and sees how much he'll get back if he changes his policy to the bike.

Other than that, I don't know what to do apart from either take the 'laid up' option or for him to keep using it until it runs out.

 

[Macster]

Seems an absolute rip off to me.

Cancel a Policy and rid the Insurers of ALL risk cover and they'l refund £500........

Or keep SOME cover and some RISK to Insurers and they'l refund £1200......

Makes NO sense at all.

I'd complain to Ombudsman ?

 

[bobmac]

No idea what I'm talking about here so ignore me.
Cant driver A name driver B as a named driver and driver B pay the insurance till August?

 

[Imurg]

Trouble is if B is driving the car mostly , they become the main user and the insurance has to be in their name. It's the same principle as Mum or Dad insuring a car for Little Johnny as a named driver.

On a separate theme - when the next car that pulls out on me while I'm driving along, and I run into the back of it at the next roundabout, can I use the excuse that if they hadn't pulled out on me they wouldn't have been there and therefore wouldn't have been hit??? Just wondered as it happened 4 times today in the space of 2 hours......

 

[Region3]

Seems an absolute rip off to me.

Cancel a Policy and rid the Insurers of ALL risk cover and they'l refund £500........

Or keep SOME cover and some RISK to Insurers and they'l refund £1200......

Makes NO sense at all.

I'd complain to Ombudsman ?

Agree 100% it makes absolutely no sense to me either, but then a lot of things in this world seem to have been dreamt up while common sense was on a lunch break!

It shows how crazy it is when he can take the 'laid up' policy and buy his brother a cheap car to run around in and still be better off than if he sold it to him

 

[Region3]

when the next car that pulls out on me while I'm driving along, and I run into the back of it at the next roundabout, can I use the excuse that if they hadn't pulled out on me they wouldn't have been there and therefore wouldn't have been hit??? Just wondered as it happened 4 times today in the space of 2 hours......

I've got to ask.

A driving instructor running into the back a car 4 times in 2 hours?

You'd have thought the bloke would have learnt after you'd run into him a couple of times

 

[StuartD]

IIRC you cannot insure a car if you are not the registered keeper and if A tells his insurance its SORNed then if B has a bump you are all in the brown stuff.

You can insure a car if you are not the owner. It's one of the questions in all insurance forms. I insured my Brother-in-laws car in my name while he was working abroad.

What you will find though is not many companies will give you a quote. The last time i done it I only got about 20 companies give me a quote on Confused. Out of interest I changed the owner to me and everyone bar SAGA gave me a quote and they were much cheaper too

 

[PhilTheFragger]

IIRC you cannot insure a car if you are not the registered keeper

Our main wagon is the bosses "work Vehicle", its all paid for by her firm, she is the reg keeper, but im the main driver and I insure it in my name.
Just she pays for it

Neat trick eh !!!

Fragger

 

[viscount17]

Declare it SORN and get your £1200 back
Subsequently you sell it, and cancel the insurance - nothing illegal there?
B dutifully taxes and insures the vehicle - nothing illegal there?

 

[Macster]

Viscount: sounds perfect to me too, and after all, once you have the dosh, there's b@gger all they can do about it.

 

[Region3]

Declare it SORN and get your £1200 back
Subsequently you sell it, and cancel the insurance - nothing illegal there?
B dutifully taxes and insures the vehicle - nothing illegal there?

That's a great idea.

I wonder if the insurance company would try to enforce a cancellation fee upon cancelling the laid up policy?

I know they'd struggle to get it (maybe) but it's just more grief we don't need.

 

[Macster]

Possession in 9/10ths of the law..........

 

[viscount17]

check the policy anyway, those cancellation charges sound obscene. how long has it been running?

maybe make a reasonable offer via the insurance ombudsman - the remainder of the current month plus a further a month's cover.

 

[Andy]

How much was the Policy to get a £1200 refund?

Your son will also get a much better bike quote from a dedicated Bike insurance company.

Andy