Multiple car registration and insurance question

setanta1984

Odd question here as I am after getting myself quite confused, hoping someone knows the best way to approach this:

My wife and I bought a car a number of years ago, Car A, and it was registered in her name. The insurance policy was also in her name, and I was a named driver. It was our only car at the time.

2 years ago, we bought a second car, Car B. This was registered in my name, as Car A was already registered to her. As Car B was actually going to be primarily used by my wife, we took the rather silly in hindsight decision to just change her existing insurance policy to cover Car B, and I took out a new insurance policy in my name against Car A, with her as named driver.

So, we now have the situation:

Car A is registered to my wife, but the insurance policy for it is in my name. Car is primarily driven my me.

Car B is registered to me, but the insurance policy is in her name. Car is primarily driven by her.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but I'm starting to think this was a silly move? I thought it was better to have the main driver of the car have the insurance in their name, rather than the registered owner. We've obviously never had to make a claim so this has never been though much of until now, where we are selling Car A, and replacing it with Car C.

So we now need to sort out the registration and insurance of Car C - it will primarily be driven by me.

I see a few options:

Option 1: Register Car C to me (so both of our cars will be registered to me) and simply change the car associated with my existing policy I have in my name for Car A. That way Car C will be registered and insured under my name, and Car B will be registered to me, but insured by my wife.

Option 2: Register Car C to my wife (so we each only have 1 registered car to our name) and try and get the insurance company (we are with the same insurer) to change the car details for both policies we have so they match the registered owners.

Long winded I know, but my main questions are:

1. is there any problems with having both cars registered to me (until we replace Car B, which might be next year, when obviously we'd register the replacement to my wife), and leaving the two insurance polices separate?

2. Is there a major problem with having the car registered to one spouse but insured by the other?

Thanks for any advice.

User1998

Since you’s are married you’s both have an insurable interest in the car therefore it does not matter who’s name the car is registered in

bazz26

It's still advised to rotate the main driver name of the policy between you both every 2 years to keep your individual NCB.

chrisd2019

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058371280/multiple-car-registration-and-insurance-question

Many couples have similar situations, important thing is that the person driving is covered by the policy at the time. You can usually get a discount on insurance due to having a second vehicle.

gipi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122667208#Comment_122667208

Shouldn't be an issue here as there are 2 cars and 2 policies.

db

Two things to be aware of here even though they do not apply in your case.

If you are not a named driver on the other car you are not insured to drive it under third party driving of another car. This clause does not apply to a car registered to you or your spouse.

If either of you get penalty points or have a claim it will increase the renewal price of both policies. In this case it may be cheaper to have open driving than having the second person named on the policy.

Sam Russell

Quite often putting a spouse on a policy as a named driver reduces the cost - which appears counter intuitive but they reckon it reduces the risk.

Registered keeper on the logbook is not important between spouses, as far as I know because 'keeper' does not confirm ownership. There should be a separate registration for owner or interested party (such as finance company), but not so.

The question of penalty points is important, and needs consideration - as does the question of NCB. Well worth keeping an eye on both.