Insuring a car which I have sold to my own Ltd Co.

Callaways

Hi all,

I bought a car in 2016 and have owned it and insured it in my own name since. I sold the car to my own company (Ltd Co.) and I will remain the only driver. Car is not used for commercial purposes. Just go to see a client the odd time carrying nothing but my laptop. I got the vehicle registration changed to show the company as owner when i sold car to my company.

I was pretty unsure if I needed to do anything from an insurance perspective. I am still the only driver of the car, I just own the car through my company (which I am sole owner of). I am the only person who drives the car also.

Spoke to my insurer (Aviva) on two occasions now and to be honest I have zero confidence - very ambigious answers and not clear at all as to whether I have to change insurance or what needs to happen. They have me filling out forms galore (they already have all the info as I am insured with them.

My question - does anybody know what is the story if you sell personal car to company solely owned by yourself and the car in both cases is only driven by yourself. From an insurance perspective, what should I be doing now (in the knowledge that I have already changed vehicle ownership). Do I need to cancel personal insurance? Should insurance be in company name with me as named driver?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Kind regards

David

coylemj

Car is not used for commercial purposes. Just go to see a client the odd time carrying nothing but my laptop.

Going to 'see a client' is commercial use. If you are not selling and are not carrying goods and samples, you can ask the insurance for 'restricted business use' and some of them will give that cover for no additional charge.

If you no longer own the car and it's now owned by the company, I would say that you definitely need to get the insurance changed. But that will probably involve losing your no-claims discount.

I think you might have been better off keeping the car and policy in your name, getting restricted business use cover, then personally charge the company at civil service mileage rates for any trips. The company can pay you that as a tax-free expense.

Of course keeping the car in your name means you could not charge depreciation of the car as a company expense. But depending on what mileage you do and the age of the car, there will be a break-even point where the mileage allowance the company pays you could compensate you for all running costs, including depreciation.

Del2005

Your LTD company needs to take out a policy on their car and allow you to drive it, it's not your car anymore it's owned by a LTD company, as Coylemj said you'll loose all your NCD doing this as your LTD company has no insurance history.

As a matter of interest what was the reason you sold a 7 year old car to your company? The taxes on company supplied vehicles are crazy and you're going to loose your private NCD by having your LTD insure the car.

coylemj

As a matter of interest what was the reason you sold a 7 year old car to your company? The taxes on company supplied vehicles are crazy and you're going to loose your private NCD by having your LTD insure the car.

Good point, I forgot about BIK. OP, if the company owns the car and you have the use of it, you are liable for benefit-in-kind whereby the taxman places a value on the benefit of having the car for private use and you pay your top rate of PAYE on that benefit.