Buying/selling car "chain" insurance question

DrPhilG

Long story short, I'm about to change my car. Because the car I'm after is fairly hard to come by around here, I'll quite possibly have to go to England to get one.

That means I can't trade in my current car so I'm left with having to sell it privately.

That has its problems. If I find the car I want in the UK, I need to sell quick. Or if I sell first then I'm stuck without wheels until I locate a new car.

One suggestion is to sell up, buy an oul cheap banger just to get around, then find my new car. That's not ideal though.

My question is this. If I buy my new car and switch my insurance, is it possible to get both cars under the same policy? Or would I need to take out a new policy on the old car until I sell it?

Am I right in thinking that the old car could not be test driven by a potential buyer if I do not have insurance on it?

Obviously the down side if that is that I have to cough up the full cost of the new car and then recover the value of the old car later, but fortunately I can cover that.

Suggestions?

coylemj

DrPhilG wrote: »

My question is this. If I buy my new car and switch my insurance, is it possible to get both cars under the same policy? Or would I need to take out a new policy on the old car until I sell it?

I was in that situation once, Axa gave me one or two weeks overlap with both cars covered.

DrPhilG wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that the old car could not be test driven by a potential buyer if I do not have insurance on it?

You'll have to ask your insurance. Maybe ask to keep open driving on the old car until you get rid of it and have only you covered on the new car until then.

CiniO

DrPhilG wrote: »

My question is this. If I buy my new car and switch my insurance, is it possible to get both cars under the same policy? Or would I need to take out a new policy on the old car until I sell it?

Why would you want a policy on the old car, if you will already have a new car - so will be using new one?
Obviously unless old one is very valuable and possible risk of theft is a threat, but I can't imagine that being the case.

Am I right in thinking that the old car could not be test driven by a potential buyer if I do not have insurance on it?

Unless you have "open driving policy" which would allow anyone to drive your car (which I doubt you have), then it's all up to buyers situation - if he has "driving other cars" extension on his policy. If he has it, then he can drive your car no matter if you have policy on it or not.
If he doesn't have it, then he can not drive it.

DrPhilG

CiniO wrote: »

Obviously unless old one is very valuable and possible risk of theft is a threat, but I can't imagine that being the case.

Well the old one is worth in the region of €10k so theft would be a nightmare!

CiniO wrote: »

If he has "driving other cars" extension on his policy. If he has it, then he can drive your car no matter if you have policy on it or not.
If he doesn't have it, then he can not drive it.

I was always told that even with "driving other cars" on the policy, the car had to be insured by the owner. So someone coming to test drive would need to have "other car" cover, but the car I was selling would have to be insured by myself too.

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

I was always told that even with "driving other cars" on the policy, the car had to be insured by the owner. So someone coming to test drive would need to have "other car" cover, but the car I was selling would have to be insured by myself too.

Learn something new every day... Selling my old car once my insurance has moved is no different than selling it now while it has cover.

Just spoke to 123.ie via their chat system.

ME: If I am selling it privately then other people need to be able to test drive it. My understanding is that they will not be able to do so if I am not insured on it.

THEM: I see, if someone else wants to drive your car they would have to have there own insurance. Similar to your cover that allows for driving of other cars on a Third Party Only basis, when you use that cover the other car does not need to be insured as your policy provides cover. It would just be a matter of checking that the interested party has their own cover.

ME: So if their own insurance policy covers them to drive other cars, then it doesn't matter if my own car is insured or not? And if they had an accident in my old car, their insurance policy would cover it?

THEM: Yes, but of course you will need to confirm the cover with that person first.

CiniO

DrPhilG wrote: »

Well the old one is worth in the region of €10k so theft would be a nightmare!

Possibly, but if you had to fork out another 1k for policy for that car, just to cover it for few weeks until it's sold, then IMO it's definitely not worth it.
What are the chances of theft?

I was always told that even with "driving other cars" on the policy, the car had to be insured by the owner. So someone coming to test drive would need to have "other car" cover, but the car I was selling would have to be insured by myself too.

So you were told wrong.

CiniO

DrPhilG wrote: »

Learn something new every day... Selling my old car once my insurance has moved is no different than selling it now while it has cover.

Just spoke to 123.ie via their chat system.

Remember though, that if you give someone your car to test drive, even though their own policy will provide cover under third party extension, but it will only be 3rd party in most cases, so will just cover them against damage caused to other people. It wouldn't cover damage to your car.

DrPhilG

CiniO wrote: »

It wouldn't cover damage to your car.

Bingo.....

Defeats the purpose of what I asked the insurance company then although I suppose I didn't word it properly.

I thought that the extension of their 3rd party cover meant that my car was classed as the 3rd party.

How the hell does anyone sell a car privately then? Any time someone test drives your car you risk them smushing it and leaving you an insurance writeoff, or in my case, a worthless car that you're not covered on.