Selling and buying dilemma

[philchave]

Afternoon all,
I wonder if anyone can suggest a way forward with this insurance problem?

We've got one car for sale. It's taxed, insured fully comp. with 12yrs NCB.

Having bought another car, I thought, buy new insurance for this car, sell the old car, cancel old policy. Sounds easy.

12yrs NCB with new car is £200, fine. But I remembered from a long time ago that you can't have your NCB on two policies. You have to build it up on the second policy separately.

Rerun quote with no NCB, quote now £650. A bit steep from what I'm used too (my S280 insurance last year was only £180 fully comp).

So solution is cancel old policy, or better still transfer it to new car. But now old car not insured and must be SORN'd and nobody can legally take it for a test drive before buying it. Even the buyers insurance would be invalid as the car has no owner insurance, as the part where it says you can drive other vehicles on your policy only works if the car is insured by the owner. Who in their right mind would do that?

Went to a temporary policy insurance company to see if that was a solution. Quote is £250 for 28 days.

Can you tell me what you all do please? The SORN/insurance thing has mucked up swopping cars by miles.

I'm beginning to wonder if this legislation was dreamt up by the 'we buy any car' brigade to offer us peanuts when we are backed into a corner with all this hassle.

What do you think?
Sorry it's a long one. Thanks for your thoughts.
Phil Chave

 

[Mic]

This has become a real issue......perhaps one of our ''Forum Supporter'' insurance brokers can advise?

Mic

 

[roop_the_loop]

I may be wrong, but when I bought my current car and it took me a month to get rid of the old one, I'm pretty sure the insurers kept both on the same policy on the basis that the old one wasn't being driven as such (other than the occasional short test drive by potential buyers) and mainly sat on the drive.

Furthermore I seem to remember the old one was on 3PFT cover only (whether this was on the insurer's insistence or me being stingy, I can't remember, but I was certainly happy with it) so didn't cost much at all.

Have your insurers definitely said 'no' to such an arrangement? Or have I missed some crucial bit of your question...?

 

[kth286]

I have always had the new car and the existing old car on existing policy until old car is sold.

It's normally in blocks of 1 month, and I think they would do up to 3 months (ie 3 blocks)
if you had not sold your car by the end of each month.

the extra charge is by the month too in advance.

Very reasonable cost with Direct Line when I did it last time.

 

[roop_the_loop]

It's normally in blocks of 1 month, and I think they would do up to 3 months (ie 3 blocks)

Ditto

Very reasonable cost with Direct Line when I did it last time.

Yes, mine was also DL, as it happens. (Coincidence - or is this something specific to them?)

 

[turbopete]

i had the same thing a few years back when I was selling a car after buying another. was no problem, just a small extra premium on a month to month basis for 3 months max

 

[d215yq]

I recently had a period where i didn't need the car for two weeks as the insurance expired so just let the old policy expire and re-insured two weeks later. No-one from the police/dvla has said anything despite me breaking the continuous insurance regs and i think if it's a short period of time realistically they ignore it (as of course they should).

As for the new buyer not having insurance, not necesarily the case, they may get a day insure quote or have a policy that does allow for use of any car without ownersinsurance, either way it's not your problem, their responsibility.

 

[philchave]

From Phil: Original poster.

Thank you all for your kind replies and ideas.

I went back to the AA armed with all your wisdom and explained that I wanted to transfer the insurance to the new car and keep the old one on temporary TPFT while I advertise and sell it.

The lady from the AA said that would be fine. They even offer 14 days for free, and then 14 days at £25 and further 14 day chunks at £10. I was delighted with that and told her to go ahead, thinking all the while how clever I'd been to ask you all first.
That's when it all went to hell in a bucket!

First, this arrangement was declined by the insurer! The reason, because I hadn't had the new car for at least a year. I told her the only reason I was doing this was because it was a NEW car to me, and wasn't that what the 14 day thing was for? Wouldn't/couldn't budge.

The AA idea, transfer policy to new car and start a new policy with 0 NCB on old car. This would cost £185 for the year, even though it would only be sat on a driveway, and not driven except to allow for a test-drive, until it was sold.

Second AA idea was leave old policy in place and cancel when old car is sold. Have a new policy for new car with 0 NCB and to be fair, despite confused.com coming up with prices like £600+, the AA lady got it down to £260. That was when I snapped her hand off!

The downside is that your original NCB whilst it can be transferred to the new policy when old car is sold, will NOT be protected for the duration of the first years policy. Not protected means that it can be lost if you have an accident. When I enquired, it would claw back from 11+ years to 9 years, so losing 2 years per hit.

One thing I did learn..... The cheap quote for the new car came at a high price for the excess (around £700), which means on an older car you virtually get nothing. However, for an extra few pounds on the policy you can even insure the voluntary and compulsory excess. How's about that! Crafty devils will think of anything to add a quid to your policy, but worth every penny in this instance, I reckon.

It was all very long winded, and it took nearly an hour on the phone to the AA, but it was sorted in the end, maybe not quite as you had suggested, but I guess every insurance company does things slightly differently, don't they?
Thanks again, happy driving.
Phil

 

[Gary Hanson]

I may be wrong, but when I bought my current car and it took me a month to get rid of the old one, I'm pretty sure the insurers kept both on the same policy........

Yes, we had this when my Dad bought another car. He rang his insurance company who said they'd transfer the cover to the new car, but leave the old car insured for a month so he had a chance to sell it. Same company also didn't charge him any extra to add me as a named driver on the policy. I think it was MoreThan, but you'd have to check and see if they're still as flexible.