Is there any reason (as if insurance companies need anything other than profit as a reason) why Insurance companies require cars over a certain value to have fully comp insurance?. Been shopping around for insurance on what I hope to be my next car and can't find an insurance company to quote a Third party or TPFT policy. Some state that cars over a certain value (usually £5-8K) must have fully comp.
Does anyone who knows more than I do about the insurance industry shed some light on this?. The car will be bought cash so no fianace company will have a interest in it and I just want the minimum legal requirements and I don't see how forcing me to have fully comp benefits the insurance company...aside from higher premiums paid into their pockets. If thats the case, why not just do away with TP and TPFT completely and only offer fully comprehensive policies. *rant mode off*
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Personally I would WANT comprehensive insurance on a car of that value. Cars are pretty damn expensive to fix even after a minor bump, and it also means you miss out on useful add ons like glass cover, legal assistance etc.
You pays you money and takes your choice as they say.
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You can get legal assistance on TPF and T. You just ask for it.
I would agree though, unless the difference in premiums are close to a grand I'd want the Fully Comp for a car worth that money.
Two of our vehicles are worth less than £3k each, even they are insured FC, well at around £350 each per year, when TPFT is probably saving about £100 on each.....
Last year both SWMBO and I got extremely good value for money from our insurers. The Almera crused head first into a wall costing some £1K plus VAT, she paid the first £120. The van argued with a bollard in B and Q car park in Plymouth and was £2k plus VAT to fix, I paid the first £250.
SWMBO kept all her NCD as she had protection on that, though the van policy didn't qualify for that and hence my NCD went down to 45% from 65%, 5 years to 4 IIRC.
Bizzarly, both premiums are less this year than they were last year!
I don't think I'll be going to TPFT just yet ;)
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TPO/TPFT was always seen as a bargain basement product for those too risky/poor to afford fully comp. Request for TPFT on a high value car may seem "fishy", and represent potential trouble best avoided.
I've also seen posts on this site suggesting that TPFT actually represents only a very small saving, even sometimes being risk weighted in a way that means it's more than fully comp. I think it was only about £50 cheaper for SWMBO's venerable BX, and we'd have we lost glass cover and some other bells and whistles.
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FC and TPF&T has been within a fiver of each other at around 120 quid for me on the car. Bikes are a different matter with TPF&T being half the FC cost.
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The answer to this one is very simple. Suppose someone insures a car with a value of say £7000 and they damage it by, say bashing a lampost or something. Some people, if they have less than fully comp cover and thus faced with their own repair bills ...(which can be very high...cars get written off regularly as accident repairs are often judged un-economic) ...might be tempted to 'lose the vehicle' and make a claim on the basis its been stolen.
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i'd never thought of that, it explains their reluctance to offer TPFT , but why should they be reluctant to offer TP ?
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I'm not sure if this is the right thread, but I have been storing up my insurance questions for a while! I begin from the perhaps inexcusable position of complete ignorance with respect to motor insurance.
What *exactly* does insurance protect you against?
That may seem like a stupid question, but for me, the car itself is just a piece of tin - I don't care about it at all.
However, I am aware that my car can cause damage to other people, passengers in my car, people in other cars, pedestrians, other peoples cars, etc - does insurance effectively protect me against the potentially bankrupting claims that people may place against me. How can/do insurers wriggle out of the really expensive claims?
I do not set out to be in any way deliberately negligent, but, for example, my car doesn't have a nice set of dealer stamps in the service book. Does this make me potentially negligent?
Number_Cruncher
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You can get Third Party only if you want traders insurance. I paid less than £400 last year for it. Strangely enough you can get quotes of more than that to drive certain cars on a private policy third party only. Funny old world.
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Well I don't know the price difference between FC, TPFT and TP as the insurance companies I have tried won't give me a quote for TPFT or TP so even if its only 50p difference between them, I have no way of knowing.
I know that fully comp is better etc etc etc, but one small point I need to get across is that I don't *want* it. What I do want is a choice to insure my vehicle to the levels that I require, within the confines of the law of course. I realize now that if the insurance companies don't want to give me that choice then too bad for me, I just wanted to know what reasons they could possibly have for not allowing me to choose my level of cover. I would like to think it is more than them dictating mandatory high levels of cover as they make more profit from higher premiums paid.
Does one have to be legally registered (whatever that is) as a trader to get TP only traders insurance?. If the cost of registering is not too high it might be worth going down that route. Any advice on going down the trade insurance route?.
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I never had trouble getting TP only traders. You don't need to be legally registered ..at least not in my area. A quick call to a broker advertising in the back of a car magazine...no problem. Some points to note however....
No claims discount peaks at about 55% and you lose the lot if you make a claim. As far as I know you cannot transfer No claims discount from traders to a private policy. Aware of this fact I have kept a private policy going alongside the traders one. They may ask you to supply a list of cars you hold (if any) when you take out the policy (European Law requirement I think). No steam driven vehicles, vehicles with >8 seats (not on mine anyway) and of course no HGV.
On a plus note, you can use the traders insurance certificate to tax any car you want to put in your name.
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Forgot to say, some local authorities no indeed require traders to be registered if they are indeed trading but not everyone with traders insurance is actually trading. For example car valeters, dismantlers, owners of several cars who require flexibility etc. No registration is needed to actually take out cover.
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Thanks stonefish, good info there and certainly worth looking into. Just another quick question, do you need "trade plates" on the trade policy insured vehicle. Not that I know what trade plates even look like.
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Traders do usually have trade plates and a VAT registration No. but there are some who have neither!
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