I'm thinking of buying a car privately and want to be adequately insured for a test drive. I'm 23 so my own policy doesn't include cover for other cars. My insurer (Elephant) cannot add a temporary car until I have been with them for 3 months. Even then, the minimum cover is for 7 days.
Does anyone know if temporary test drive cover exists and where it could be bought from?
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I test drove a number of 206's about a year ago and one particular vendor had arranged cover for all his prospective buyers. He said it cost him about £8 per drive. As for you arranging insurance through anyone but your own company would be a problem.
At the end of the day it's down to the vendor to ensure you have adequate cover or to arrange it if you don't.
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"At the end of the day it's down to the vendor to ensure you have adequate cover or to arrange it if you don't."
Unfortunatly it is not.
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Actually it is down to both parties to ensure that insurance cover in place. Both could get prosecuted.
Although I would be more worried about the practical side which is damaging a car I didn;t own, and perhaps didn't want to own.
If you;re buying from the trade they will almost certainyl have insurance to cover you, although if they didn;t put trade plates in it I wouldn't take their word for it.
If you're buying it privately I guess it depends which market you;re in. Someone selling an expensive car would probably arrange insurance for you. Especially if you agreed to buy it conditional only on a satisfactory test drive.
If you're in the cheaper end of the market, then unless you know some private ground you can use, you;re probably stuffed.
Don't you know anyone whose judgement you trust that you could take with you and who does have the DOC extension ?
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>>My insurer (Elephant) cannot add a temporary car until I have been with them for 3 months. Even then, the minimum cover is for 7 days.
BTW, not wishing to make it worse, but did you mention to them that it was for testing a car you were considering buying ? You might find them *much* less willing.
I'm afraid I can;t think of a way around it.
Are you considering one particular car ? Maybe you can try a deal with the owner if so ? Something along the lines of he adds you to his policy for the day, if you buy the car he pays for it, if you don't then you do.
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Mark (RBLS)
What are Insurance Brokers for as opposed to Companies?
If I took this problem to one of them would they be able to negotiate a deal?
Appreciate it may be costly.
DVD
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I myself went through this problem a couple of years ago when looking to purchase another car privately.
The only way of doing it, assuming that the car is already insured by the present owners, which it almost certainly would be, is to have yourself put onto their insurance policy as a named driver, or, alternatively, if they already have "any driver" on their policy then that would be fine, too.
You cannot take out, say, one days insurance of your own, with a view to test driving someone elses' car that you are looking to purchase privately. This is because it is a common rule of insurance that you are not allowed to insure the same thing twice over. This is what I was told by my own insurer, Direct Line, when I tried to do this very thing previously.
If the car that you are seeking to buy isn't insured at all, then there would be no problem. Direct Line informed me that I could purchase just one day's insurance to carry out a test drive, this being the minimum period they could offer me.
If you already own a car, many insurance policies allow you to drive another car which doesn't belong to you. However, the cover offered for this is THIRD PARTY ONLY, so no accidental damage which you might be unlucky enough to cause to the vehicle would be covered.
As someone else has already correctly stated, buying from a dealer insurance should be no problem as they should have motor traders insurance which covers customers to take out vehicles for test drives with a view to purchase.
When buying privately, however, there are certainly potential problems when it comes to a test drive. You might just have to be to be happy with the owner taking you for a drive with him (or her) in the driving seat, that is, if this is acceptable to you.
Good Luck, anyway!
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I have just bought a car and test drove it after getting a days fully comp insurance for it (through my existing policy) from Direct Line - cost £7!
On a different but related note, I bought the car (1991 BMW 325iS - 2.5l engine) and changed my policy (1995 Mazda 323 - 2.0 V6 engine) which resulted in a £140 rebate from Direct Line. How does that work then? Increase horsepower, increase age, reduce premium!
Thanks for the early christmas pressie DL!
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Hmmm, that's very interesting!
I must say that, when I originally enquired about doing this, I was told that it WAS possible, but when I actually tried to do it, on a different occasion, I was told that it wasn't.
Looks like the insurance companies don't even understand their own incredibly complex rules, so, what chance do the likes of us stand??!!
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>>If you already own a car, many insurance policies allow you to
>>drive another car which doesn't belong to you. However, the
>>cover offered for this is THIRD PARTY ONLY, so no accidental
>>damage which you might be unlucky enough to cause to the
>>vehicle would be covered.
Strictly speaking, you have to have fully comp insurance on your car and the car you are driving MUST also be insured fully comp. You are correct on the THIRD PARTY ONLY part, so if you knock down a wall you're only covered for the wall and not the damage to the car.
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>>and the car you are driving MUST also be insured fully comp
Why ? Or do you just mean to avoid losing money in the event of an incident rather than a legal or insurer requirement ?
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>>>>and the car you are driving MUST also be insured fully comp
>>Why ? Or do you just mean to avoid losing money in the event
>>of an incident rather than a legal or insurer requirement ?
I was told this by Direct Line when trying to determine whether a car parked on the street was covered by my everyday fully comp cover. It may just be my policy but I'm sure it is worded that you are covered to drive "any other fully insured vehicle". I'd need to check the policy to be certain, so appologies in advance if I'm wrong.
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If someone is buying a car from me I'll take them out and properly 'exercise' the car for them. Then I've told them that if they hand over the cash/draft or whatever they can insure it in their name and take it for their own test drive. If they find a problem they can have their money back. Nobody has ever taken me up on the offer though.
PB.
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You could always have something like an AA or RAC inspection carried out on the vehicle which you were looking to purchase. Their inspector would, as part of the inspection, drive the car and be covered by the insurance of the organisation he was working for.
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Cheers for the help.
I think the inspection route might be best. Some include an HPI check (worth 40 pounds now), which I wouldn't buy a private used car without. In relation to the price of the car, the inspections seem good value.
I know plenty of people that would just drive the car uninsured for half an hour but it's a risk I don't want to take.
James
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