What are my choices re: insurance? I’m thinking a one day policy will be required to get me through to when the phones open on Monday.

And I’ll need insurance to tax it, right?

Online cover note?

Online and that’s you covered, they email you the docs now

I already have a policy with Kwik-Fit, but they’re closed until 9am Monday.

Don’t think you need insurance now to tax a car but I guess it will be invalid of you don’t have any

The tax is irrelevant to get the car home.
Insurance, however, isn’t.

New online policy and then cancel within the cooling off period once you’ve sorted out your own insurance (assuming you don’t have cause to prove insurance to anybody during that period)?

Went through this a few months ago with a small independent trader who used to manage a large dealership. Basically it comes down to what’s reasonable, his advice was;

is it reasonable that you buy a car at the weekend?

Yes it is, and it’s not your fault that your insurance company doesn’t have a facility to provide you service at the weekend.

Wrote an email to the insurance company stating the new car details and when bought and that id be in contact when they reopened.

He was insistent that the car had to be taxed before driven off though. Very easy to do using their automated service, no problem with insurance, I’m not sure it’s linked anymore as anyone buying a car would have a nightmare with systems updating (or not)

My mate used to buy cars at auction, call up his trade insurance company, and leave a message on the answering machine to insure it to drive it home.

We may or may not have abused this at times.

Nothing like a bit of planning in advance is there 😆

What’s wrong with just buying a new policy then cancelling the existing one (when you presumably get rid of the old car)

If you know you’re definitely going to buy the car, getting another policy would work and undoubtedly be cheaper than changing your current policy.

The only issue is you would have two insurance policies for 2 cars and no claims for only one (until you sold your other car). And if you cancelled the old policy for the old car and hadn’t sold it, you would need to SORN it meaning no one could test drive it (legally)

I already have a policy with Kwik-Fit, but they’re closed until 9am Monday.

You can change the car details online with KwikFit. I know, cos I did the same last month.

I would go with the online cover note.

All this talk of emailing/leaving your new car details on an answer machine wouldn’t stand up legally and no doubt another statistic making up the uninsured drivers figures. The insurance company must offer you cover for a fee based on risk and you accept by payment. This can not happen when they don’t know the risk, the car you are wanting covered and therefore you can not accept an offer they haven’t offered.

It’s not cheaper to get a new policy over changing details. If your with the same company they don’t always even charge you. Mine never.

I got a 1 day insurance cover thing when picking up a car in the UK to import to ireland.

Pretty cheap and 24hr people on the telephone.

It’s not cheaper to get a new policy over changing details. If your with the same company they don’t always even charge you. Mine never.

Massive sweeping generalisation, depends entirely on the risk as Craig said. Don’t email/phone, that’s complete bollocks. If you can’t update details online buy a new policy and cancel in the cooling off period. If you can’t be arsed with that you can get one day policies from short term insurers, expensive though.

Basically it comes down to what’s reasonable, his advice was;

is it reasonable that you buy a car at the weekend?

Yes it is, and it’s not your fault that your insurance company doesn’t have a facility to provide you service at the weekend.

is it reasonable to flout the law based on convenience? you may think so, but have an accident and you’ll pay the price.
if you buy the car, pick it up when you have the documentation in place, would be my advice.

Get the vendor to drive it home for you.

If you can’t be arsed with that you can get one day policies from short term insurers, expensive though.

Not as expensive as having your premiums bumped up for years to come for having been caught with no insurance.

Basically it comes down to what’s reasonable, his advice was;
is it reasonable that you buy a car at the weekend?
Yes it is, and it’s not your fault that your insurance company doesn’t have a facility to provide you service at the weekend.

This is loopy. You can’t unilaterally form a contract with an insurance company because you think it’s reasonable to do so.

Ask the dealer if they do 7 days free cover. An awful lot do these days. If not just get online cover for 1 day of any online broker. Does not have to be your broker any will do.

The law doesn’t care what is reasonable, and isn’t interested in the reason for you being uninsured is that your insurance company isn’t sufficiently convenient for you. Especially when it’s not terribly difficult to arrange insurance in advance – it’s not compulsory to decide to buy and drive off the same day, and most people don’t do that. Yet more reinforcement that used car dealers are dodgy blokes who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about and will say anything to shift a car (apologies to any used car dealers on – your colleagues are giving you a bad name).

Some sensible and legal options have already been given. Personally I got a new insurance policy (with the same insurer) when I last changed a car, as that was cheaper than getting short term cover whilst I sold the old car on ebay – though those circumstances presumably don’t apply to the OP.

Not as expensive as having your premiums bumped up for years to come for having been caught with no insurance.

Did you read my entire post? That quote is entirely out of context. 🙄

Went through this a few months ago with a small independent trader who used to manage a large dealership. Basically it comes down to what’s reasonable, his advice was;
is it reasonable that you buy a car at the weekend?
Yes it is, and it’s not your fault good yythat your insurance company doesn’t have a facility to provide you service at the weekend.

What a load of old toss 😆

Agreed. They want the sale. They don’t give a shit when you get screwed over for having no insurance.

See also: I want a pint of milk at 6pm on a Sunday. That’s reasonable. Sainsbury’s isn’t open, so I’ll break in.

Got a car last week and AFlux wanted £48 quid for 2 days cover so I could get the car home. I decided to pay 260ish for fully comp for the year.

As for the place being closed and the guys attitude of ‘is it reasonable.. just do it’ don’t ever use that nugget again. He’ll get you and others into serious trouble if things turn pear shaped.

‘it’s not your fault it’s closed’

And driving home without insurance will be great fun when you become the most unlucky man in Britain when someone steps off a pavement into your path.. or a cyclist runs a red light and he goes over your bonnet. Not worth the crap.

Moneysupermarket quotes, save the best ones and jot down what they include. Call up your current insurer to see if they can match it. Do all of this regardless of whether you’re buying the car or not,on the friday. If the sale doesn’t go through, let them know.. but be covered even if it means losing out a small amount.

Sounds like bad advice from the trader who we (wife) bought the car from… FWIW I drove the car home 3rd party under my policy in the end.

Thinking about it now, whilst I’m definitely insured to drive another vehicle 3rd party with the owners consent, I’m not sure if the car had to be insured by someone for that to be valid.

Sounds like bad advice from the trader who we (wife) bought the car from… FWIW I drove the car home 3rd party under my policy in the end

That’s dodgy too.

^ it is.

Has to be insured already else where as far as i am aware for you to be able to drive third party

I checked my policy documents and they don’t mention anything about another car I’m driving under my policy having to be insured separately. However a general search suggests that many policies exclude cars owned by your partner from this cover (I’m with LV and they don’t have this as an exclusion either).

Though there is still a grey area. The car would be insured so long as I am driving it. However if I park the car on a public road, as soon as I step out of the car an offence has been committed as the car is no longer insured. I’m not entirely sure what the legal situation is – whether there is still an offence of the car not being insured even if I’m insured to drive it, as it clearly won’t come up as being insured on the databases if you go through an ANPR check. The real gotcha here is that if you’re stopped by the police, you’re fine as long as you’re still in the driver’s seat, but not if they ask you to step out of the car!

Has to be insured already else where as far as i am aware for you to be able to drive third party

Depends on the policy.

The real gotcha here is that if you’re stopped by the police, you’re fine as long as you’re still in the driver’s seat, but not if they ask you to step out of the car!

As long as you are still driving the car you are fine.
Stopping to put petrol in is ok, parking up to go shopping for a few hours isn’t.
Not sure exactly where the line is though…

Yes it DOES have to have insurance independently of yours.
The “third party” part ONLY applies to the cover given by your Insurers IF you have the owners permission and THEY have insurance on THAT vehicle.

Not according to my policy docs, hammy – yours might be different. I was surprised because that was what I was expecting and I was only checking so that I could quote it 😳

hammyuk – Member

Yes it DOES have to have insurance independently of yours.
The “third party” part ONLY applies to the cover given by your Insurers IF you have the owners permission and THEY have insurance on THAT vehicle.

You can use as many capital letters as you like, it still depends on the policy.
Some of my policies have had this requirement, some haven’t.

You may be getting confused with Continuous Insurance Enforcement, which is a different and seperate offence.

Bought a car recently. I had third party cover for other vehicles on my insurance for my old car. The catch with that is it only applies to vehicles I don’t own. So I agreed with the seller that he still owned it til I got it home, hence my cover still applied. We agreed to put the date of sale on the V5 as as the day after.

I was buying from a friend of a friend who trusted me, and in fact I didn’t pay him til I got home (it was only £350), but I’d thought it through for another potential purchase and can’t see any reason why a seller would leave themselves at risk by agreeing to that, though I’ll admit it sounds a little dodgy.

Nope – you can’t own the vehicle and every policy I’ve had including for bikes whilst allowing it there must be insurance in place on that vehicle by whoever owns it.
Zurich, RSA, Hastings, Hastings Direct – cars. AXA, MCE and Bennetts on the bikes..

every policy I’ve had

Not every policy I’ve had.

I’m not sure I can make this simpler, but as you aren’t harming anyone by being wrong it’s of no importance.
🙂

You really want to start this shite again?

Wait 18 hours?