Insurance while between cars

Captain Slow IRL

I'm after selling my car today and am not sure what to do about my insurance - should I transfer it onto the wife's car until I find one or just cancel it and get a new policy when I get the new car?

If I just cancelled it, would I have a time limit to take out a new policy before my no claims bonus would be affected?

Senna

Time limit for no claims bonus is 2 or 3 years (its long anyway), so you should be fine. You probably wont be able to transfer it to your wife's car, as her car is in her name.
The insurance company can just freeze your policy, only problem is you cant use your 3rd party exemption to drive other cars unless you have your policy attached to a car you own. If its going to be more than a month till you get a new car you should probably cancel it.

mickdw

I was in same situation. Rang Axa and they couldnt really do anything for me. I told them car was sold and that my policy was no longer to be associated with it. I didnt want to cancel policy but assumed they would be able to record that car was no longer covered - put it on hold as such. She said they could not do that. I was told to either cancel it or leave it be. I couldnt get my head around this and keep saying that cancelling was not an option due to NCB history etc. In the end, she agreed to put a note on the file saying car was sold and that I would be contacting them with new car details in due course. Pretty stupid situation though

Captain Slow IRL

If the policy is frozen, do I still have to make my monthly repayments while it is frozen?

CiniO

Senna wrote: »

Time limit for no claims bonus is 2 or 3 years (its long anyway), so you should be fine.

Not necesserily. It depends on Insurance company. Some of them won't accept NCB expired more then 6 weeks ago. So be careful.

You probably wont be able to transfer it to your wife's car, as her car is in her name.

That actually doesn't matter.
Vast majority of insurance comapnies, will insure you with car registered on your or your wife's name. Just check in T&C.

The insurance company can just freeze your policy, only problem is you cant use your 3rd party exemption to drive other cars unless you have your policy attached to a car you own. If its going to be more than a month till you get a new car you should probably cancel it.

By freezing you mean suspending?
I think that's the best option in this case.

Just ring insurance comapny and tell them you want to suspend a policy.

CiniO

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

If the policy is frozen, do I still have to make my monthly repayments while it is frozen?

If you suspend your policy most likely you still have to do monthly payments, but for the suspension period it will be calculated only some percentage of normal premium, which will be refunded later.

So in example, you pay 60 euros monthly. Insuance company offers only 10% of premium during suspension period. You suspend your policy for 2 months. For these two month you pay normally 60 euros. After you get your policy back running, you will get refund for that period (2x60 paid - 2x(60*10%) due = 120 - 12 = 108). So you will get 108 euros refund.
That's the way it worked with my policy with Hibernin few years ago.
I suppose it's similar with most policies.

L1011

CiniO wrote: »

That actually doesn't matter.
Vast majority of insurance comapnies, will insure you with car registered on your or your wife's name. Just check in T&C.

I would assume his wifes car is already insured, and its a legal minefield if you've got two policies on the same car - as well as against any T&Cs I've ever seen.

CiniO

MYOB wrote: »

I would assume his wifes car is already insured, and its a legal minefield if you've got two policies on the same car - as well as against any T&Cs I've ever seen.

That's the other thing.
He didn't say though, it was insured already

Captain Slow IRL

I ran Axa there, if I cancel it, I can save my no claims bonus with them for up to 3 years - she wasn't sure about other insurers.

If I froze the policy, I'd have to continue making payments and ensure the policy was frozen for at least a month - to ensure I got my money back on the next policy I took out with them