Insurance for test drives?

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Sun 13 Mar 2005 13:11
Insurance for test drives? - loopyjen
I am asking this question on behalf of my boyfriend. He has just passed his driving test and so is hoping to buy a car at long last.

He was wondering where he stands with regards test driving of any cars which he sees and may wish to buy as he won't have any insurance. Is this going to be a problem?

I could possibly do the test drive for him but obviously it would be more beneficial for him to do it himself as he will be the one driving it at the end of the day.

Will he be ok to test drive without any insurance or is there some sort of procedure for this sort of thing?

Any advice would be great

Thanks
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Sun 13 Mar 2005 13:41
Insurance for test drives? - blue_haddock
If it's a main dealer he'll be on their insurance, most normal 2nd hand garages will also let him drive on their insurance. A small garage may only have cover for staff to drive the cars.

If he is looking at private sales then he will need his own insurance, a lot of private sellers now have the opinion of no insurance no test.
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Sun 13 Mar 2005 14:32
Insurance for test drives? - NowWheels
The policies I have had have only offered me third-party insurance when driving another car, even if I have had comprehensive cover for my own car.

So as far as I understand it ... if I crashed during a test-drive, I'd be covered for any damage caused to the other vehicles, but not for the one I was testing. The seller might not be very keen to claim on his comprehensive cover for the damage I had caused, so I'd have to cough up.

This all seems very messy. I know it's probably best not to crash a acr while testing it, but is there any way of getting a specific sort of buyers-test-drive policy to cover anything that does go wrong?
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Sun 13 Mar 2005 15:32
Insurance for test drives? - David Horn
It was 40 quid for me to get my 1.6 Astra covered for a month for any driver in order to sell it. There are loads of private cars on the market, he's probably better off going for one where it's insured for him to test drive.

As a footnote, when I test drove my (current) car, the dealer just handed me the keys and a set of tradeplates and told me to bring it back in an hour. I was 17 at the time.
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