Purchasing when insurance is closed

honda boi

So I've been on the search for another car for awhile now.
The only day my mechanic and me can view a car is Saturday.
I'm fairly shocked my insurance company aren't open at all the weekend. Thought this was a bit mad. Since I assume most people purchase cars over the weekend.
Anyway when I called them yesterday about getting a car the weekend ,I was told I can email them with the cars details and the time and date it's purchased. And come Monday the insurance will be backdated to that time.
Which I thought fair enough but if your stopped by the Garda they can still just take the car off ya as to them the car has no insurance on there system. And then your stuck with impound fees etc.
How is purchasing and insurance the weekend done or is my insurance company the only one that doesn't do online or open weekends

Isambard

two options, get your mechanic to drive it home, he'll have garage insurance I assume or show the Gard your email

coylemj

Isambard wrote: »

two options, get your mechanic to drive it home, he'll have garage insurance I assume or show the Gard your email

Or bring a friend who has 'driving other cars' on his policy. OP won't be covered once he becomes the owner, until his insurance is sorted.

I wouldn't rely on the insurance backdating the policy to when they get the e-mail. For starters, you were probably told that by a call agent who might be simply making it up. Second, you have no guarantee that the e-mail will actually arrive on Saturday, their mail server could be be down for maintenance or an upgrade so it may not arrive into the addressee's inbox until late Sunday. So they may not issue a cert. to show that you were covered from some time on Saturday.

bazz26

I don't think insurance companies ever opened at weekends except for their emergency claim line and I'd say if there was enough business to do it they would. Some insurance companies do provide online facilities to take out a new policy or transfer but not all of them do as I'd imagine it might be open to abuse.

If you know you are buying the car then you can prearrange cover to start or transfer from an existing policy over at a specific time. The other options are to either bring someone who has the driving of other vehicles extension on their policy and can drive it home for you until the insurance company opens again on Monday or wait to collect the car on a weekday when you can just ring up the insurance company and arrange cover there and then.

lawred2

I would imagine a lot of people decide on a car to buy at the weekend and sort the transaction and insurance during the following week. Possibly picking it up the following weekend if not possible during the week.

bazz26

Yep, most people if buying from a dealer wouldn't complete the deal in the same day especially if there were a few niggly that the dealer needed to sort with the car first or they needed to sort finance. Buying something of low value or private would be different though.

honda boi

Thanks lads
I bought the car in the end and the mechanic had a trade policy so brought it to my house.
Ye I had thought there would be alot of what ifs with emailing about the policy. Didn't want to take a chance.
It was a private sale sub 2500€ car. Wasn't 100% if I was gonna buy so couldn't organise changing insurance yesterday.
I suppose I could of payed for the car and next week get a lift to pick it up, but I'd be iffy with that.
Seems a bit of a hassle, wanted to see how you lads do it.
Hadn't bought a car in years and thought insurance sorting would be straight forward at weekends.
So now I've a new car outside and can't drive till Monday when I can swap over insurance

ddarcy

bazz26 wrote: »

I don't think insurance companies ever opened at weekends except for their emergency claim line and I'd say if there was enough business to do it they would. Some insurance companies do provide online facilities to take out a new policy or transfer but not all of them do as I'd imagine it might be open to abuse.

If you know you are buying the car then you can prearrange cover to start or transfer from an existing policy over at a specific time. The other options are to either bring someone who has the driving of other vehicles extension on their policy and can drive it home for you until the insurance company opens again on Monday or wait to collect the car on a weekday when you can just ring up the insurance company and arrange cover there and then.

Actually was a bit shocked reading this. I know Allianz is open on Saturday mornings to change our get. I’d assume brokers probably only work Monday to Friday though. I would have thought the bigger players would be open anyways, even for a half day.

I know the deed is done but would another option have been to get a new policy and then on Monday get them to sort it all out? (If someone is looking at this for a reference anyways)

bazz26

ddarcy wrote: »

Actually was a bit shocked reading this. I know Allianz is open on Saturday mornings to change our get. I’d assume brokers probably only work Monday to Friday though. I would have thought the bigger players would be open anyways, even for a half day.

I know the deed is done but would another option have been to get a new policy and then on Monday get them to sort it all out? (If someone is looking at this for a reference anyways)

The problem is that if you already have a policy on an existing then your NCB can only be applied to one policy at any time.

Truckermal

coylemj wrote: »

Or bring a friend who has 'driving other cars' on his policy. OP won't be covered once he becomes the owner

If you are referring to a Third Party Extension the Car needs a valid Insurance policy also so a Car for sale will not have this.

newmember2

honda boi wrote: »

...if your stopped by the Garda they can still just take the car off ya as to them the car has no insurance on there system...

They don't have a system that shows if you have insurance or not - that's why you have a disc in your window.

Truckermal

newmember? wrote: »

They don't have a system that shows if you have insurance or not - that's why you have a disc in our window.

You should follow their social media page so...

newmember2

Truckermal wrote: »

You should follow their social media page so...

??

Esel

Truckermal wrote: »

If you are referring to a Third Party Extension the Car needs a valid Insurance policy also so a Car for sale will not have this.

Not all insurance companies require that the other car be insured separately.
Some do.

honda boi

Well at 9am today when they decided to open.
I managed to swap over car insurance and they managed to get more money out of me.
Still shocked they don't open weekends but it's done now