Car Insurance - What is Open Driving

colly10 · 13-05-2022 10:18am #1

I have the option to add open driving to my policy. The explaination given is -

Covers those aged between 25-70 (71 for FBD Policies) with a Full EU or UK Licence to drive your car with your permission. Certain restrictions apply which depend on your underwriter. To review these restrictions, please check the details in the policy booklet which is located at the top of this page.

I don't really get this. If my wife has insurance on her own car and her insurance allows her to drive other cars, surely she can drive my car under her own policy without me choosing this option? What's this option covering?

whippet · 13-05-2022 10:22am

check the restrictions in the full policy document - that will explain who can and can't be deemed covered by what they are describing as open drive. Each insurer can have different interpretations of what 'Open Driving' means and this is detailed in the policy.

Myself and my wife just have each other as named drivers on each other's policy - it actually reduced the premium most years. So we don't have to worry about clauses / restrictions etc.

bazz26 · 13-05-2022 10:30am

There is a dedicated motor insurance forum for this on boards:

https://www.boards.ie/categories/insurance-aircraft-maritime-motor

13-05-2022 10:36am

Everyone else.

colly10 · 13-05-2022 10:49am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055903#Comment_119055903

As in anyone regardless of whether they have insurance on their own car?

BronsonTB · 13-05-2022 10:51am

"What's this option covering?"

As above, it covers other people besides your family to drive your car.

cruizer101 · 13-05-2022 10:53am

Driving other cars on your own insurance policy covers you for third party, it doesn't cover you comprehensively.

Open driving may cover other drivers comprehensively when they drive your car.

It may also cover fully licensed drivers that don't have their own insurance, or their insurance doesn't allow for driving of other cars some do have restrictions.

Wildly Boaring · 13-05-2022 10:59am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119055988#Comment_119055988

Exactly. Your wife is driving your car 3rd party.

Name her and vice versa

Open drive is for people like my father who has 2 sons living abroad and drive his car when they're back for the weekend.

colml cule · 14-05-2022 1:50am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119056013#Comment_119056013

How does it work if a claim were to occur in these scenarios?

For example, if wife has driving other cars on her own policy on her own car, and an incident occurs while driving the husband's car, is the claim on the wife's insurance?

And likewise if there is an open driving policy on the car and someone else is driving, does it then fall on the policy on the car itself?

Eggs For Dinner · 14-05-2022 7:01am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119059472#Comment_119059472

It's complicated but basically, if your wife was the cause of the accident, her policy pays the 3rd party's costs and the husband's policy pays to repair his car.

Both therefore have a claim against their policies for the same accident

Wildly Boaring · 14-05-2022 8:09am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119059472#Comment_119059472

Not sure to be honest.

What I do know is, if your wife is driving your car on her "driving other cars" extension and not named on your fully comp and crashes.....

You get nothing for your car. Her insurance only sort out 3rd parties.

Driving of other cars is useful occasionally but it's rarely more than 3rd party. (Setanta had it fully comp years ago as standard). So basically driving on it is extremely risky I the car is worth a few quid.

Name them or pay for fully comp open drive. BTW open drive usually has limits. They need to be 25 to 70, full licence and usually less than 5 or 6 points.

eusap · 16-05-2022 9:18am

Open Driving = Covers anybody with a full license 25-70 to drive your car, so if a friend or relative wants to borrow your car they can and not need to call the insurance company.

But they are driving on your insurance if they crash its on your policy unless as stated earlier if they had there own policy with third party cover

kirving · 16-05-2022 9:34am

I recently had "Driving Other Cars - Fully Comp" on my policy, but not even provided as an option by most insurers. I guess it's a recipe for someone to insure a Micra and then not be too worried about crashing their friends GTI - resulting in them actually crashing it.

There are restrictions, along the lines of <2.0L, <€50k, etc on the borrowed car, but it was funny that since my own car was 2.1L, I wouldn't have had fully comp on a less powerful variant of the same model car.

Car Insurance - What is Open Driving

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