"Pausing Tax and Insurance"

Alkers

My girlfriend has just found out she will be moving abroad for five months with work. She has just taxed her car for the year and has a good 8 months or so remaining on the insurance.
Can she "pause" the existing tax/insurance or get a refund and take it out again upon her returning home? Declaring the car off the road isn't an issue, we can park it on the driveway.
Anything we should do with the car to leave it the five months, it is almost due new tyres so we will probably replace those when putting it on the road again.

To Elland Back

You can pause (suspend) the insurance up as far as the renewal date and obtain credit. You must return the cert and disc to them with your instruction. Be warned, all cover ceases, including fire & theft. At renewal date you can either let it lapse or renew in full and suspend again

mickdw

If happy to interrupt insurance record re no claims bonus etc, you can cancel the insurance policy and in most cases get refund on period not used. Might not be worth the hassle. Talk to insurer and see options
Motor tax can be refunded in certain cases as long as there are 3 months remaining.
Form rf120 would be the way to go. If you have evidence of needing to leave the state for work, you should get any full months remaining refunded.

Riskymove

I once moved abroad with work for a few months and my insurance company told me that as I was being moved by work I was entitled to continue be covered by them while abroad.

worth discussing this with the company

CiniO

Riskymove wrote: »

I once moved abroad with work for a few months and my insurance company told me that as I was being moved by work I was entitled to continue be covered by them while abroad.

worth discussing this with the company

But if OP's girlfriend is not taking the car with her, then cover abroad is quite useless.

Neilw

You can only claim tax back if the car is scrapped or exported iirc, so no joy there.
As for insurance, you could cancel as stated above or you can suspend the driving risk and keep fire/theft cover while its parked. You will get some money back and still earn your NCB for the year.

mickdw

Neilw wrote: »

You can only claim tax back if the car is scrapped or exported iirc, so no joy there.
As for insurance, you could cancel as stated above or you can suspend the driving risk and keep fire/theft cover while its parked. You will get some money back and still earn your NCB for the year.

I'm sure the rules are opened up a bit re the tax rebate so I think your advice is no longer correct

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Yawns

Quick look on Citizen's Information here

Refunds of motor tax
It is possible in certain circumstances, to claim a refund of motor tax. Your application for a refund, should be made directly to you local motor tax office, on Form RF120 (pdf). Circumstances where you may claim a refund of motor tax include;

The vehicle has been scrapped/destroyed or sent permanently out of the State,
The vehicle has been stolen and has not been recovered by the owner,
The vehicle has not been taken out or used in a public place at any time since the issue of the current disc,
The owner of the vehicle has ceased, because of illness, injury or other physical disability, to use the vehicle,
The owner of the vehicle has ceased, because of absence from the state for business or educational purposes, to use the vehicle,
The owner of the vehicle has ceased, because of service overseas with the Defence Forces, to use the vehicle.
Tax discs must be surrendered immediately as refunds are generally calculated from the first of the month following the surrender of the disc. A minimum of three unexpired whole calender months must be left on the disc when surrendered. Where a vehicle has been scrapped you will need a certificate of destruction issued by an End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) Authorised Treatment Facility.

cplwhisper

Simona1986 wrote: »

My girlfriend has just found out she will be moving abroad for five months with work. She has just taxed her car for the year and has a good 8 months or so remaining on the insurance.
Can she "pause" the existing tax/insurance or get a refund and take it out again upon her returning home? Declaring the car off the road isn't an issue, we can park it on the driveway.
Anything we should do with the car to leave it the five months, it is almost due new tyres so we will probably replace those when putting it on the road again.

If the insurance is suspended until renewal with Axa , your car cover for fire and theft cover is retained and you still earn a no claim bonus... Percentage of monies paid back at renewal subject no claim during the suspension cover

ironclaw

Yawns wrote: »

Quick look on Citizen's Information here

Just to note, you need a minimum of three months remaining on the disc to be considered for a refund.

I, and many of my colleagues, regularly face this problem. We could be away for 2 weeks or 6 months, often at short notice. Its a right pain as unless you have a secure, and non-public place place for the car, cancelling tax and insurance could cause issues.

mickdw

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Rules on tax are still the same. No refunds unless scrapped or detained in hospital.

I do not think this is correct advice.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Gumbo

ironclaw wrote: »

Just to note, you need a minimum of three months remaining on the disc to be considered for a refund.

I, and many of my colleagues, regularly face this problem. We could be away for 2 weeks or 6 months, often at short notice. Its a right pain as unless you have a secure, and non-public place place for the car, cancelling tax and insurance could cause issues.

And it's worth noting that the current month is not counted. So to get a refund in a car now, you would need tax for at least Nov, Dec and Jan.

ironclaw

kceire wrote: »

And it's worth noting that the current month is not counted. So to get a refund in a car now, you would need tax for at least Nov, Dec and Jan.

Always something :rolleyes:

I have no idea why you can't buy say 365 days (Or part thereof), and you have to use them say within 18 months of purchase. Would give someone 6 months in which they may not use the car (e.g. Long term work cycle, holiday) and would be terribly easy to implement if the whole system went online and moved away from the physical tax disc. You would literally log on and start / stop your tax, with the remaining days and cut off dates clearly displayed when you do. Offer a discount for buying more 'days' in a single go, and I feel you're on to a winner (At least for me) You'd have to limit based on the budget every year, but still, a discount for buying 6 months or a year would be welcomed.

That or scrap it and put it exclusively on fuel. Takes away all that messing entirely.

mickdw

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Nothing has changed:

You quote the text that proves you wrong yet still claim you are correct.
If you look directly under your second highlighted sentence you will see the applicable clause that allows refund in this case - being absent from state for business / work.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

ASOT

Patww79 wrote: »

I've recently landed in a similar situation after getting given a company car in the summer. I really don't know what to do with my insurance so I've just been paying the monthly amount and letting it run, as I don't want to be trying to get insured from scratch if I ever need my own again.
What do people do in this case? Keep a second car and don't drive it just to keep the NCB?

If your not driving the car at all then maybe sell it, get a cheap 1L car to insure on a TPFT basis every second e.g insure this year then not next year to keep your bonus active, I deal with this every day in work and I feel bad for some people who's bonus runs out or they got a company car so never bothered to keep there original insurance so lose there bonus and have no driving experience when the time comes to get a policy again as being on the company policy wouldn't be considered named driving experience.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

ASOT

Patww79 wrote: »

Selling it is a whole other issue as I can't find any time to do so. But if I did, how can you skip years and keep insurance up?

Because the bonus would last for two years, so insuring sometime every second year would keep the bonus active for whenever you were gone from the company or if anything came up and you needed your own policy!

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

ASOT

Patww79 wrote: »

Interesting, I never knew that. Does NCT come into play at all? I'm thinking the way now might be to buy a really cheap non runner, insure it, and sorn it if the insurance cost was OK.

Technically yes, we can't insure a vehicle that has no NCT but we don't ask the question does it have NCT do you see what I mean? Yeah essentially that's what I was suggesting getting a cheap 1L and insuring it every second year, leave it parked up so you cut out the costs of NCT & tax also.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

ASOT

Patww79 wrote: »

Cheers, that sounds very helpful indeed. The only other stipulation I presume would be to keep it under the 10 years old mark? Or are some companies considering 15 year old ones?

I know we insure down to at least 98, I put a few through last week. So I'd say around the 00 mark just to be safe, maybe slightly higher. But saying that I'm sure you'll find companies for the older cars.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

ASOT

Yeah I never taught of that, essentially you could just give any reg of a cheap run around even if you don't own it and pay the insurance to keep the bonus active....

slimjimmc

ASOT wrote: »

Technically yes, we can't insure a vehicle that has no NCT but we don't ask the question does it have NCT do you see what I mean? Yeah essentially that's what I was suggesting getting a cheap 1L and insuring it every second year, leave it parked up so you cut out the costs of NCT & tax also.

Where does this come from? Afaik there's no law requiring you to have a valid NCT in order to get mandatory 3rd party insurance.

ASOT

slimjimmc wrote: »

There's no law requiring you to have a valid NCT in order to get mandatory 3rd party insurance.

I know there's not, but it's not inside my company's acceptance criteria to insure a vehicle with no insurance.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

ASOT

Fred Swanson wrote: »

It is a car that only exists on paper, they have a log book but the car concerned has long ceased driving.

That's fairly handy alright, speaking of that I still have the log book off my old car which is also gone, never taught about that. Cheers for that!