59. DRIVING SOMEONE ELSE'S CAR: Can I drive someone else's car on my insurance?

Motoring Law website Road Law (www.road-law.co.uk) is warning drivers to read their insurance policies carefully, particularly if they are going to drive someone else’s car.

“It used to be fairly standard that as long as you were more than 25 years old your own insurance policy would entitle you to drive someone else’s car and you would still have the minimum requirement of at least third party cover”, explains Road Law’s Martin Davies.

”However we are being contacted by more and more aggrieved drivers who are finding that having been stopped by the police and asked to produce their documents, they are not in fact covered at all”. They will therefore have committed the strict liability offence of driving with no insurance, which means between 6-8 points on their licence or even a disqualification, plus a fine of up to £5,000. As it is a strict liability offence there is no defence to the charge, no matter that you may have genuinely thought you were covered.

Until recently most fully comprehensive policies included a “drive other cars” clause, which gave the holder third-party cover on any vehicle they drove, providing they have the owner's permission. But the insurers say that the clause, intended to cover only emergency situations, was being abused, with unscrupulous motorists using it as a way to be insured to drive bigger and better cars than they were actually paying for.

The problem seems to be that brokers and insurers are failing to advise drivers of the change in their policies when these are being renewed. “They think they are getting what they have had before ie a policy with a “drive other vehicles” clause, but this turns out not to be the case, which means they are driving illegally”. Road Law is suggesting that drivers check their insurance policies before assuming they have cover and when renewing ask their brokers or the insurers if they are insured to drive someone else’s car.

More at www.road-law.co.uk