I do not consider myself a car trader but I change my vehicle quite often and every time find myself frustrated at the insurance companies inabilty to cope with a change of car. It always appears that it is an excuse for them to put my insurance up even if I am moving to a lower risk vehicle. I have considered getting myself a traders type policy just to save the hassle of insurance changers when I swop car, there must be people out there with some experiance of traders insurance?
What are the pitfalls and are the costs high, I would have two cars to insure, would I need to set myself a business up to enable this (No turnover!!-lol) or is there some other way around this issue.
Thanks for your help in advance.
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I'm not 100% on this but I think you can only get 3rd Party insurance for this type of policy.
If you can get comprehensive I bet it will be very expensive.
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I got a quote for just the same reason. Included my wife as named driver. From memory, about £600 TP, £700 TPFT and £950 fully comp. Max value £5000, £250 excess. We both have full no-claims. No need to set up a business or even be a trader as far as I could make out. When our insurance is up I will do a proper check - what I want is to change our second car(s) as frequently as I like, but use them as normal (i.e. they will not be driven only, or even at all in the course of trade).
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Out of curiosity, if the driver(s) is(are) insured rather than the vehicle, how do you go about taxing it?? (no reg nr on the insurance).
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If you're not a trader then it may be tricky. You can tell them what you like and they'll cover you, but when something happens and you need to claim, that's when they'll start asking questions, and if you've misrepresented any facts, well you know the score. Premiums are based on total value of vehicles, where kept etc. But you have to pay more for the little things that you take for granted on normal policies, like windscreen cover, trailers, green cards, radios etc. Excesses are usually higher, and to start with you have to go to the crappy insurers, just like when you start out with motor insurance, and their policies have more exclusions than you can shake a stick at. Another thing they also do is refuse you road risk cover unless you also take their 3rd party liability and service liability cover.
It's like any commercial insurance in that it is all arranged on a case by case basis, as opposed to an 'off the shelf' policy that covers everything. The cheap deals that you see advertised in the back of Autotrader are the bottom of the pile crap designed to give the basic legal minimum. It's fair to say that my premium is less than it would cost me to individually insure all vehicles, but I can sleep easy at night knowing it's above board and with a reputable company.
Regards taxing cars, you only have to show that the vehicle is insured, therefore if YOU are insured to drive any car YOU own, and the car belongs to YOU, then it's a done deal.
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I believe these policies only pay out trade price if the car is stolen or written off, on the assumption that, as a trader, this is what it would cost you to replace.
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I had a trade policy for a couple of years when I was a mobile mechanic, I used it to cover my car as well as the work van. When I went back to normal insurance (Churchill) they deducted two years from my NCB. It didn't amount to much in my case and wasn't worth arguing about, but it might be different for someone else.
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