Temporarily transferring car insurance to another car while it is in for repairs

bawn79

Hi all

We have our car insurance through a broker with Zurich. Our car has been out of action being fixed in a garage for two weeks but a friend has offered a car they own as a lend while they are on holidays and ours looks like it will take another week to sort out.

We tried to transfer our insurance over to their car but were told by our brokers it wasn't possible to have two insurances on the one car. I'm fairly certain I did something like this a few years ago. Should I be able to do this, what do people think?

Hellrazer

Sounds like crap to be honest. Ive done it loads of times with Allianz not Zurich though - even borrowing my dads car while mine was in for repair while he had his own policy on it.

Id call them back and explain that its a temporary transfer while your car is being repaired and the car will be kept at your address and insured on your policy and not your friends.

Maybe your policy doesnt allow for temporary substitutions and teh broker are trying to get out of it by giving you this excuse.

Even our loaner cars in work technically have a policy on them yet we loan them out to loads of customers every week by transferring their insurance on to them including Zurich ones.

UrbanFox

This is an interesting point that has confused me a bit.

I left my car in to a main dealer for 3 days for repairs. They offered me a car on loan for the 3 days. I think that they wanted to get me to take my car off the policy and put theirs on as a substitute vehicle ( I think that is what they called it).

I was not too happy about the idea and declined. What worried me was that if I deleted the car from my policy for the 3 days then there would be no motor insurance on my car although I was still the owner.

Suppose that they were road testing my car after repair and the mechanic was negligent in his driving. Technically, I would regard myself as vicariously liable for the mechanic's negligence as he would, by implication, be driving with my consent.

I am aware that motor traders have their own policies but where would I stand insurance-wise if they crashed my car and injured a third party ?

In my innocence my thinking is that I would be safer to add the the loaned out car on to the policy as a temporary additional vehicle but that might not be possible.

What would be the right and safest thing to do to avoid potential legal / insurance trouble in this type of situation ?

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119638245#Comment_119638245

If you leave your policy active on the car in the garage then if the garage crashes the car there's a chance you could be part of the claim. If you transfer your policy to the loaner then the garage is the only party to a claim and they will be responsible for fixing or replacing your car.

coylemj

Urbanfox, I can understand your concern.

A loaner car from a main dealer onto which you transfer your own policy is known as a 'replacement vehicle'. To distinguish it from a rental, which comes with it's own insurance. If a mechanic takes your car out for a test drive and runs down someone, the garage policy will cover it. You are correct in that your policy will no longer be in effect on your car but the garage will have a policy which covers their employees when driving customers' cars.

You mention the possibility of adding the replacement car as a 'temporary additional vehicle' to your policy but I've never heard of any company offering this facility.