A general insurance query...

[Rob]

Right, something on here got me thinking:

I buy a car, I'm only going to do 5k miles in it max.

I insure the car for 5k miles, greatly reducing the premium (well at least reducing it).

Now, I'm not at home 30% of the year in random intervals, so I let my good pal (we'll call him Gandalf) drive the car whilst I'm away 3rd party as his car's a bit of a banger (but with fully comp insurance and third party drive other cars).

Now, Gandalf does 8k miles in the time I'm away over the year because he's knobbing a bird from Cornwall but lives in Newcastle, then, on the 364th day of my policy, I have a huge accident, totalling 29 cars.

The insurance decide to investigate as it's going to cost them over £250,000 and they see my car has done 12,998 miles since I had my last MOT (which happens to be on the same day I took out my insurance).

So, where do I stand? I've done 4,998 miles in the year (under the quota), but the car has done almost 13k?

 

[Budgie]

Re: A general insurance querrey...

How do they know what miles your car started on?

Also, it's query.

Deary. x

 

[Rob]

Blame iPhones.

They know the mileage of the car due to the MOT that was on the same day as the policy began.

 

[Spinksy]

who is gandalf insured with?

 

[The Boosh!]

Re: A general insurance querrey...

How do they know what miles your car started on?

They usually ask you to fill out a limited milage form at the start of the policy. Well, Flux and Brentacre did with me.

 

[Rob]

who is gandalf insured with?

Another insurer with 20k miles on his policy.

 

[Scrooge]

The insurance company will always fark you over. That's all you need to know.

 

[Rob]

Whilst I know you're right, I wonder how they stand here.

Say they caught me out and said I'd done 20k miles in a year but have 12 on the policy, if I say "my mum drove 8k in it" they'd be a bit stuck.

 

[Dan519]

if he's regularly doing that mileage on "other vehicles" entitlement, he's going to get bummed. It's meant for emergencies, cover will be invalid essentially. No different to fronting.

 

[Rob]

Since when is it for emergencies?

Also, it's not him that's crashed, it's me. So surely, he's out of the equation really as it's nothing to do with his insurer either?

 

[Rudi]

unless the insurance company do limited mileage policies your all good mate. The question should always be worded "whats the estimated annual mileage of the vehicle" They would be checking things like your employment etc if they wanted to get out of paying the claim

 

[Hixle]

Since when is it for emergencies?

It's insurer dependant tbh, there's no one rule. Lot's of insurers are emergancy only though afaik.

 

[Spinksy]

Another insurer with 20k miles on his policy.

ah good, not sure what it is worth really, it just interested me...

but shirley if you could say my friend had been driving insured on his policy to explain the excess mileage everyone caught out on a limited mileage policy would do this?

also I dont think they would be too concerned about the mileage being over to the point of not paying out? shirley just bill you for the excess miles as the difference in policy prices.....

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Interesting hypothesis, Roberto.

I've always been semi-worried by the 'TP cover' lark too...

How can I prove I've driven my friends car 1 mile up the road as he's got to do something else or lost his shoes and can't drive ? How can I prove I've not been driving it about the last 6 months doing 1000 miles a week in it ?!

Will 'I only wanted to see what it drove like' be acceptable ? What about 'we ran out of beer' .. 'a squirrel ran off with my keys' .. 'I don't like my own car' ...

The only car I drive regularly is the OH's and I'm a named driver on her policy anyway.

Still a mega grey area to me TBH.

Mine says I'm covered for other cars which are insured by a.n.other person and not registered ownership in my name. It doesn't say 'you can drive other cars if you've been mugged by a rodent or run out of shoes'.

 

[Scrooge]

It's a grey area but doens't say emergency use at all anywhere onthe policy. So surely the insurance company doesn't have a leg to stand on.

 

[Dan519]

Since when is it for emergencies?

Also, it's not him that's crashed, it's me. So surely, he's out of the equation really as it's nothing to do with his insurer either?

since forever. It's ajust there for convenience. extended use like that would be seen as fraud by the vast majority of insurers as he should be named on the main policy, it being illegal to have the same vehicle insured twice on separate policies

shouldn't be a problem immediately, but they may take it further if you use that arguement.

 

[JoedotwasT5phy]

They would also consider the person covering the most milage on the policy the "main" driver regardless of ownership. As Dan says, no different to fronting.

 

[Rob]

OK then Joe, just to be pedantic (this is entirely theoretical), if Gandalf covered 4000 miles, almost doubling my yearly mileage allowance.

 

[MarkCup]

When you specify '5k miles', is the question the insurance company has asked you 'How many miles will the policyholder travel per year?' or is it actually 'How many miles will the vehicle travel per year?'?

 

[Hixle]

Generally worded as 'Estimated Annual Milage', or something like that. I've never worked in motor insurance where milage is taken into consideration when calculating a premium, so wouldn't know for sure.

 

[Gally]

Mileage is actually similar to vehicle valuation. Policy price doesn't change in 90% of cases until above £15,000 or 15k miles. Obviously they know the price of the car but the valuation means very little until above a threshold.

Try it on the comparison websites mate, move the mileage up and down and see how the policy price doesn't change. The difference between 4k miles and 8k miles in the scheme of things is actually negligible.

A lot of people don't know this. They also don't know driveway and street for a lot of companies make zero difference, postcode is the only factor. I know a lot of stuff.

 

[Rob]

Mileage always made a difference for me, the difference between 12k and 18k was quite large on my 172 iirc. Didn't check the zed as I don't drive so far now. I know drive/road/garage often don't really feature though.

 

[Gally]

12k to 18k is above average hence the increase. 5-8/9/10 makes zero difference to mine.

 

[Dan519]

mileage only really makes a significant difference in price on specialist policies IME. Stuff like kit cars, yanks and classics.

 

[Gally]

Indeed. Classic cars with say 6 month insurance policies etc.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Rob, the other similar one would be for someone like myself, my turbo clio next year will probably do in excess of half its mileage on racetracks, and hence not on the public highway where the insurance covers me.
So why should someone in that situation have to declare double the mileage they are doing on the road just because they also use it on the track which doesnt effect the insurers at all.

I asked the question of an insurer once, and was told they wanted to know the total mileage the car would cover, and it was academic whether it was me driving it or not or whether it was done on the road or not. Made no sense to me but I guess it keeps the paperwork simple their end like that.

 

[Neil@greenlight]

When it comes to reduced mileage mileage policies (usually discounted at 7500 miles or below, however 5000 miles is usually the biggest drop in premium) the insurer usually take a mileage figure at the beginning of the policy and then again at the end of the policy. Its realistically the only way for them to track the miles so it would be impossible to tell which driver covered the miles.

One of those tracker box policies could be an option and then you could work who drove the car when and just split the cost between each other (They have online tracker facilities that you can monitor the use/cost per mile).

Although when you weigh up the cost of the initial box install in this situation it may be more beneficial to stick to a normal open mileage policy to avoid any complications. You could always charge "Gandalf" the difference in premium you would be paying for an open mileage cover bearing in mind in this sceneario he will be doing 15k miles a year in your car compared to your 5k it would only be fair for him to contribute.

Its a shame because 5000 miles can give you quite a big reduction in price in most cases. If you wanted any further advice id be happy to help.

If you wanted me to run a few different quotes for you under the various mileage bindings (we get some big disconts for lower mileage vehicles) so you can compare id be more than happy to do so.

Best Regards
Neil
Greenlight Insurance
01277 376000

 

[Chip-mk1]

On a clio you could always unplug the speed sender when gandalf was driving, then use a GPS speed app on your phone, takes only a couple of seconds to do and undo and no tools required, lol

 

[Rob]

I hope we do all realise this is genuinely theoretical.

The reason I was wondering is because from an insurance perspective, (if you were my insurer) "Gandalf" isn't your problem. He's his own insurers, so why does it matter how many miles he does in my car to YOU? Surely my insurance policy calculates my risk due to how many miles I'll do in the car?

 

[Scrooge]

So what you're saying is if your insure yourself only to drive the car on a 5k policy and you do the 5k but someone else drives it through another policy an adds 1k over the course of the year the original driver will get charged when the insurance checks at the end of the policy?

 

[Gally]

Really good question but you can't have 2 insurance policies on the same car.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Really good question but you can't have 2 insurance policies on the same car.

In this instance they wouldnt.

Rob would have it insured.

His friend gandalf then has a problem with his car 2 days before he goes on his round the UK touring holiday, so Rob kindly offers to lend him a car, which Gandalf drives on his own 3rd party cover for other vehicles to do 4K miles over the course of a fortnight, then hands the car back to Rob, the owner/main driver/person with policy on the car.

That then means that robs 5k car, has now done 9k in a year instead, but Rob himself still hasnt exposed his insurer to anymore risk than they quoted him for as he wasnt driving for the extra miles.

 

[geordieracer]

I think Rob is saying that Gandalfs own insurance policy covers him driving Rob's car, so why should Rob's insurers even care about the miles done by the bearded magician

 

[Gally]

They would have a problem because if Rob claims they would query the higher mileage, pretty simple.

A few days cover is okay but you can't have 2 policies. It's so 2 people can't claim.

 

[Chip-mk1]

They would have a problem because if Rob claims they would query the higher mileage, pretty simple.

Would it actually be pretty simple when it got to court and Rob had Gandalf stood there saying that he had done 4K of the 9K miles and therefore the insurers were incorrect in their assertion that Rob has defrauded them by exceeding his mileage limits?

Im not convinced.

 

[Rob]

Exactly Chip, I'm not talking about him having a separate policy on my car, which is illegal, but to have third party cover on his own insurance, (lets just say for instance it doesn't say "for use in emergencies" in the policy.

Gandalf may have done 4k miles in my car, but the car has been covered third party by HIS insurance, so why would this bare any relevance to my insurer? If he were to cause a £9,000,000 accident in my car, I'd never actually HAVE to contact my insurer would I?

 

[Gally]

If it's all explained then it's fine. The fact is they will query it if they do their job. If it's explained then i'm sure it would be fine. If you tell them this at the start a lot may just not insure you.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Exactly Chip, I'm not talking about him having a separate policy on my car, which is illegal, but to have third party cover on his own insurance, (lets just say for instance it doesn't say "for use in emergencies" in the policy.

Gandalf may have done 4k miles in my car, but the car has been covered third party by HIS insurance, so why would this bare any relevance to my insurer? If he were to cause a £9,000,000 accident in my car, I'd never actually HAVE to contact my insurer would I?

His insurer would want to see your policy to make sure you didnt have him named on it, as there could be a way for them to avoid paying out by passing the liability back to your insurer, but I dont think there is any need for a conversation beyond that.

I crashed a car belonging to my ex about 10 years ago while driving it on my own 3rd party cover, and thats all we had to do, send in my mrs insurance policy to show I wasnt on it, and then my insurer paid out.

 

[Scrooge]

Exactly Chip, I'm not talking about him having a separate policy on my car, which is illegal, but to have third party cover on his own insurance, (lets just say for instance it doesn't say "for use in emergencies" in the policy.

Gandalf may have done 4k miles in my car, but the car has been covered third party by HIS insurance, so why would this bare any relevance to my insurer? If he were to cause a £9,000,000 accident in my car, I'd never actually HAVE to contact my insurer would I?

The problem is as mentioned by greenlight is that they check your milegae at the start of a limited mileage policy and at the end from what I understood, so how do they go about sorting out who did what?

 

[Rob]

Yeah exactly, it's a weird one which is why I was curious, and I just fancied a decent debate/Q&A.

Also, I could do 2k miles on a track per year, for which I'm not insured anyway, it's hardly fair I couldn't use a limited mileage policy because I choose to drive my car on a private track.