I've just had an interesting conversation with Flux's customer service dept, which may sereve as a warning to other policy holders who might drive other cars under the "any other car" extension of their policy.

The OH has just got a "new" car, and we need to sell her old one which has about 3 months MOT on it. Obviously I'd like to stick 12 months on it, so figured that under the terms of my AF policy that I would be able to drive the old car (which is not insured as the policy is now on the new car) down for it's MOT.

My little C1 car policy won't cover me on other vehicles unless they are insured already (by the owner or whatever, it says that on the certificate).

My Flux policy states, in black and white, the following....(I've included this to stay the hand of the pedants)

No mention of the other vehicle needing to be insured. And in the other sections...

Looks like I can drive the old car then, doesn't it?

Nevertheless, I'm a cautious person, especially where liability and the possibility of six points on my licence are concerned, so I rung AFs customer service to check about driving other cars.

And according to them, despite the black and white text quoted above, I am NOT insured to drive this car at all unless it's insured. In this case it is no big deal at all - I can get the garage concerned to collect the car.

I am however most miffed that I could have put my driving licence at risk, along with the massive problems I would have in future with insurance related penalty points

I did mention to the young lady that maybe they ought to sort out their policy documents to be explicit about this as other insurers are, however I would be surprised if they take a single bit of notice. Someone somewhere is going to get a nasty surprise otherwise.

I have a policy with Flux, and it specifically states, if you read the small print properly, that you are only insured to drive other cars with permission from the owner and if the car has it's own insurance policy.

I'm pretty sure 99% of insurers do that to stop people from having multiple cars in someone elses name and driving them all under 1 policy..

I woul dimagine the car would have to be covered under the continous insurance rules. Not only that if you are married I would imagine you may be on a sticky wicket as technically you own the car too!

Flux is a broker, I bet it varies according to who the underwriter of the policy is. I guess the call centre staff default to the safe option if they aren't sure.

A friend of mine was insured with Quinn Direct a few years back, just like you policy it stated he was insured to drive other cars third party. He drove his dads car around sometimes with his dads permission as he was insured. He called his insurer for some unrelated question and decided to double check he was insured. They told him he wasn't and he was driving illegally as he was under 25 the documentation seemed specific to him and never stated anywhere age restrictions!

An aquantance of mine spent two weeks driving around a friends car with the same policy, I tried to tell him multiple times he wasn't insured but he wasn't having none of it. Fortunately for him he was never pulled. He refused to call his insurance company to check and claimed as it was in black and white he was definately covered.

I have quoted all of the relevant part of the policy to avoid comments like the above. Also - we are talking about my girlfriend here - I don't own the car at all. She's owner and RK.

My beef is that the only thing that made me think twice about this was the fact that I am on PH and have seen the debate on this subject. I'm also very, very careful about being correct with insurance. However your "man in the street" would read the quoted policy wording and draw the quite reasonable conclusion that he was covered to drive the vehicle.

You are wrong.
But FFS, and forgive my frustration as this has come up more than any single topic on here, the general case is of no use to the specific case. The specific case is that what the insurance documents say is what is actually in force.
Wrong as well. This thread is late, it's been more than a week.

BB

I'd be a bit concerned about the ownership thing....
Can you drive the OH's car under the DOC extension of a policy?

I am confused, you state your C1 policy states the other car must also be insured. Is this policy your Flux policy, or is it a different policy?

It seems like a extremely important statement to ommit from policy wording. Using your example above, a car doesn't need to be tax'd and MOT'd if driving to a pre booked MoT. But it does need to be insured.


I'm sure in a law case, the ommited words wouldn't be excepted as "assumed to be there". If they have gone to the trouble to write "you are insured to drive other vehicles" etc then adding on "the other vehicle needs its own ins" doesn't take much more ink to write in.