Insuring an 8 or 9 seater?

BigGeorge

Looking to buy & then insure a VW shuttle / Caravelle for use as a family car. Called a number of insurers today, including my current one, & they all said they dont insure above 7 seaters.

Any suggestions on brokers or companies who deal with something non standard like a Shuttle / Caravelle?

arthur daly

I think you might need a different license to carry more that 7,could be wrong.

BigGeorge

Don't think so, my license is for ' <3500kg and 1+8 persons'...a class B which is the normal car category

CiniO

arthur daly wrote: »

I think you might need a different license to carry more that 7,could be wrong.

You are wrong.
B licence lets you drive any passenger or goods vehicle up to 3.5t design gross weight with seating for up to 9 people (including driver).

Anything more than 9 people you need D1 or D licence.

goz83

You can even drive a small 3.5T truck on a B license. Load it up though and you need a different license :pac:

Insurance companies can be an odd criwd to deal with. Anything outside the norm, they don't want to touch. I have had a few difficulties with them insuring some vehicles.

I had a Mazda Bongo (ford freda), which is a type of camper van and carries 7 or 8 people, fully loaded. I was abke to insure it as a commercial without any real issues, when the rear seats were out and a bulk head was installed. Fast forward to trying to insure it as a private vehicle later on....and the insurers were having none of it. Wasn't on most of their systems and it was a Jap import :rolleyes:

I tried insuring a road Quad I brought in from Sweden. IMO, much safer than a motorcycle, but not a single quote I could get, unless I was a farmer. Total discrimination. Had to sell it.

Had a Mitsubishi FTO. (Well I eventually had a few). Jap imports and very difficult to insure. In the end, I managed to insure it with Liberty, but it was very hard to get insured in it.

christy02

Friend of mine has a caravelle as his family car. 8 seater. Nice job as well
Never mentioned any issues insuring it.
Surely they have a caravelle on their system?

CJhaughey

Only in Ireland makey uppy rules from Insurance companies for vehicles that in other EU states are fairly normal.
Its a load of b0llox and the Insurance industry badly needs proper regulation.

To Elland Back

8 seats means 7 chances of personal injury claims coming in against the driver. We need action on bogus claims as much as we need more regulation on insurers

CiniO

goz83 wrote: »

You can even drive a small 3.5T truck on a B license. Load it up though and you need a different license :pac:

That can not be the case.
You either car drive certain vehicle on your licence or not. There's no possibility that once you load a vehicle, you need different licence.

B licence covers vehicles up to 3.5t D.G.V.W (design gross vehicle weight). So this is the maximum weight vehicle can be together with the load.

If vehicle has D.G.V.W over 3.5t, you can't drive it on B licence even if it's empty.

If vehicle has D.G.V.W equal or less than 3.5t, then you can drive it on B licence, no matter if it's empty or fully loaded.

If you load 3.5t vehicle to over 3.5t, then vehicle is overloaded and can not be driven, no matter what licence you hold.

CiniO

CJhaughey wrote: »

Only in Ireland makey uppy rules from Insurance companies for vehicles that in other EU states are fairly normal.
Its a load of b0llox and the Insurance industry badly needs proper regulation.

Exactly.
Somehow I never heard anywhere else people having problems insuring the vehicle. It even sounds ridiculous.

Irish vehicle insurance system badly needs a change.

goz83

CiniO wrote: »

That can not be the case.
You either car drive certain vehicle on your licence or not. There's no possibility that once you load a vehicle, you need different licence.

B licence covers vehicles up to 3.5t D.G.V.W (design gross vehicle weight). So this is the maximum weight vehicle can be together with the load.

If vehicle has D.G.V.W over 3.5t, you can't drive it on B licence even if it's empty.

If vehicle has D.G.V.W equal or less than 3.5t, then you can drive it on B licence, no matter if it's empty or fully loaded.

If you load 3.5t vehicle to over 3.5t, then vehicle is overloaded and can not be driven, no matter what licence you hold.

I was joking.

It was supposed to be obvious, but I suppose it wasn't. Though I was told before that if you install a tail lift onto a 3.5T truck, it then exceeds the weight for a B license, as it is part of the truck and not just loaded goods. I wonder how true that is.

R.O.R

goz83 wrote: »

I was joking.

It was supposed to be obvious, but I suppose it wasn't. Though I was told before that if you install a tail lift onto a 3.5T truck, it then exceeds the weight for a B license, as it is part of the truck and not just loaded goods. I wonder how true that is.

You don't quite get the regulations, do you?


I'd say a lot of the issues insuring 8 or 9 seater vehicles is due to them not really being passenger vehicles or commercial vehicles, from a data point of view.

Not commercial vehicles, but they aren't listed with all the passenger vehicles either.

CiniO

R.O.R wrote: »

You don't quite get the regulations, do you?


I'd say a lot of the issues insuring 8 or 9 seater vehicles is due to them not really being passenger vehicles or commercial vehicles, from a data point of view.

Not commercial vehicles, but they aren't listed with all the passenger vehicles either.

What else would they be if not passenger vehicles?
Of course they are passenger vehicles

goz83

R.O.R wrote: »

You don't quite get the regulations, do you?


I'd say a lot of the issues insuring 8 or 9 seater vehicles is due to them not really being passenger vehicles or commercial vehicles, from a data point of view.

Not commercial vehicles, but they aren't listed with all the passenger vehicles either.

You don't quite get what i'm saying, do you?

In the post you quoted, i was talking about a HGV, not a passenger vehicle and although small trucks and large vans usually can carry a passenger, or two, I was not including passengers in the scenario.

In my previos post, referring to the Mazda Bongo....It is a passenger vehicle. They are usually privately taxed. I bought mine already commercially taxed for commercial use. I removed the seats and sealed off the storage area to comply with the regs and pass the DOE. When I closed that business and tried to insure the Bongo as a private, passenger vehicle, I ran into problems with insurance companies not even having the thing listed in most cases, or the quotes being insanely high for an import.

Or were you referring to something else? I'm not claiming to know all the regs, but I do have the personal experience I am sharing here for the OP.

R.O.R

CiniO wrote: »

What else would they be if not passenger vehicles?
Of course they are passenger vehicles

Are they listed on carzone under new cars, like all other new cars available for sale in Ireland, according to JATO?

Can you find the price of a base model Viano in 2 minutes like you can for a base model Mondeo?

Now, are they passenger vehicles like a Polo is, or would you concede it's not quite that straightforward?

R.O.R

goz83 wrote: »

You don't quite get what i'm saying, do you?

In the post you quoted, i was talking about a HGV, not a passenger vehicle and although small trucks and large vans usually can carry a passenger, or two, I was not including passengers in the scenario.

Only the first line of my reply was directed at you.

If you were talking about a 3.5 Ton vehicle, you were talking about an LGV, not a HGV. Main difference between the 2 is that most people with a licence can drive an LGV but not that many can drive a HGV.

pablo128

You can have a small truck, such as an Isuzu NPR, which is normally rated as a 5t truck, reclassed as a 3.5t GVW. This enables someone with a B licence to drive it, and not need a tacho. Now the weight of this truck unladen and with a tail lift is about 2.3t. So really it can only legally be loaded with 1.2t.

As you can imagine, it's pretty easy to go over that limit.

CiniO

pablo128 wrote: »

You can have a small truck, such as an Isuzu NPR, which is normally rated as a 5t truck, reclassed as a 3.5t GVW. This enables someone with a B licence to drive it, and not need a tacho. Now the weight of this truck unladen and with a tail lift is about 2.3t. So really it can only legally be loaded with 1.2t.

As you can imagine, it's pretty easy to go over that limit.

Indeed, but if you go over the 3.5t limit in that case, you are not breaking licence rules (as vehicle is approved as 3.5t vehicle) but you are just exceeding vehicle weight limit which obviously is also an offence.
But you can't be done for driving without appropriate licence.

CiniO

R.O.R wrote: »

Are they listed on carzone under new cars, like all other new cars available for sale in Ireland, according to JATO?

Can you find the price of a base model Viano in 2 minutes like you can for a base model Mondeo?

Now, are they passenger vehicles like a Polo is, or would you concede it's not quite that straightforward?

It is really straight forward as I'm saying.

I don't really care what's listed on carzone, and I don't need to bother finding price for Viano.

They are all passenger vehicles type M1 (EU type approval) and should all be treated the same, by tax system and insurers.
M1 are passenger vehicles up to 8 seats + driver (9 together) and up to 3.5t.
All you need to drive such vehicles is B category licence.
And there is no difference whatsoever in any law relating to 7 seater or 8 seater or 9 seater.
It's all the same


http://rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/What-Category-is-my-vehicle/Cars/

btb

Ran 8/9 seater's for years, never had a problem insuring them for private use. Was with AXA all that time and didn't pay silly premium's. (Last renewal was around 420 on a 15k value for full comp)
This was always done face to face, not listed on any online quote system.

CiniO wrote: »

It is really straight forward as I'm saying.

I don't really care what's listed on carzone, and I don't need to bother finding price for Viano.

They are all passenger vehicles type M1 (EU type approval) and should all be treated the same, by tax system and insurers.
M1 are passenger vehicles up to 8 seats + driver (9 together) and up to 3.5t.
All you need to drive such vehicles is B category licence.
And there is no difference whatsoever in any law relating to 7 seater or 8 seater or 9 seater.
It's all the same


http://rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/What-Category-is-my-vehicle/Cars/

R.O.R

CiniO wrote: »

It is really straight forward as I'm saying.

I don't really care what's listed on carzone, and I don't need to bother finding price for Viano.

They are all passenger vehicles type M1 (EU type approval) and should all be treated the same, by tax system and insurers.
M1 are passenger vehicles up to 8 seats + driver (9 together) and up to 3.5t.
All you need to drive such vehicles is B category licence.
And there is no difference whatsoever in any law relating to 7 seater or 8 seater or 9 seater.
It's all the same


http://rsa.ie/en/RSA/Your-Vehicle/About-your-Vehicle/What-Category-is-my-vehicle/Cars/

But it isn't as straight forward as you are saying, otherwise there wouldn't be this thread.

Obviously, they are M1 passenger vehicles, but they aren't treated the same as a 4,5,6,or 7 seater in quite a few areas. Why? I don't know, I just know it's not as simple as you are implying.

BigGeorge

OP here.

Thanks for the info folks. Turns out there are problems getting insurance for a caravelle or shuttle. Axa & 123.ie have both specifically said on Friday they do not insure those vehicles even though I have insurance already through both of them...could not even get them to cover a test drive on a car

CiniO

R.O.R wrote: »

But it isn't as straight forward as you are saying,

Again - it is as straight forward as I'm saying.
8 and 9 seaters are normal passenger vehicles of category M1 and they all fall under the same laws

otherwise there wouldn't be this thread.

This thread wouldn't be here, if this wasn't the case in Ireland.

Obviously, they are M1 passenger vehicles, but they aren't treated the same as a 4,5,6,or 7 seater in quite a few areas.

Can you list those few areas?
Only one we know so far are Irish insurers which in general are knows to come up with some completely absurd rules not known to the rest of the world.

R.O.R

CiniO wrote: »

Can you list those few areas?

Example 1 - VW Passenger Vehicle price list - http://www.volkswagen.ie/content/medialib/vwd4/ie/pdf-downloads/model-range-price-list/_jcr_content/renditions/rendition.download_attachment.file/150310sb_volkswagen-model-range_2015.pdf

What's missing? Explain that - Caravelle is a passenger vehicle, so why's it not listed with all the other VW passenger vehicles?

CiniO

R.O.R wrote: »

Example 1 - VW Passenger Vehicle price list - http://www.volkswagen.ie/content/medialib/vwd4/ie/pdf-downloads/model-range-price-list/_jcr_content/renditions/rendition.download_attachment.file/150310sb_volkswagen-model-range_2015.pdf

What's missing? Explain that - Caravelle is a passenger vehicle, so why's it not listed with all the other VW passenger vehicles?

I can't see anywhere mentioned on that price list, that it's an exhaustive list of passenger vehicles VW offers.
Possibly they just put up the most popular models.
I can't actually believe Caravelle to be very popular model, so maybe it's so niche that it's not worth for them to include in a leaflet.

However it proves nothing.

Such caravelle is normal passenger vehicle, can be taxed only as private on CO2 emissions (which commercial vehicles can not), and is due NCT.
In fact it is normal car - just bit bigger.

I honestly don't know why VW doesn't include it in their leaflet, but it really doesn't matter.

Why insurers don't want to touch them though, is different matter, and IMO it's a big problem that anything out of ordinary is a problem here.
If it was 45 years old mother of 2 living in Kildare, driving her 07 Vw Polo 1.2, doing mileage of 5k miles per year and having full licence for 25 years, and full NCB, then they would have no problem insuring her.
Just silly system and that's it.

You are just hardly trying to find an answer why it's hard to insure cars like that (8 or 9 seaters) by stipulating that they are something different to normal cars, while in fact they aren't.

goz83

@ ROR

What is it you are trying to prove? A caravelle is a regular passenger vehicle, as Cinio has said over and over. It doesn't need to be listed in a leaflet, or on a brochure to be classed as a passenger vehicle, which a B license holder can drive.

The Bongo I mentioned earlier.....while they do come in 8 seater versions, they also come in 7,6 and 5 seater versions. The one I had came with 5 seats. When it was used as a commercial vehicle by me, it had only the front seats, so it was a 2 seater. When I wanted to insure it privately, it was a 5 seater. It was just too much hassle to be honest, so I sold it on. The problem was not the vehicle, but the insurance companies not wanting to insure anything not sold originally in an Irish dealership.