Stolen Car: Insurance / owner / user / registered keeper?

[Tommie38]

We were the unfortunate victim of a burglary recently, and our car was stolen.

I have a nagging concern that there may be an issue with an insurance payout, and would welcome some experienced views.

Situation:
- I am the registered keeper (this is the bit that concerns me)
- Car is driven by my wife as her main car
- Insurance was in my wife's name, with me as a named driver
- Insurance company are aware that she is not the registered keeper

FWIW, I have my own car and am the registered keeper for that. On that car, the insurance is in my name and she is a named driver. The history is that we got rid of her last car, she took my old car and I bought a new one. We are not talking particularly fancy cars here. Crime reference number etc all as it should be.

My question is... is there any risk that the insurance company doesn't pay out?

[ZOLLAR]

Tommie38 said:

We were the unfortunate victim of a burglary recently, and our car was stolen.

I have a nagging concern that there may be an issue with an insurance payout, and would welcome some experienced views.

Situation:
- I am the registered keeper (this is the bit that concerns me)
- Car is driven by my wife as her main car
- Insurance was in my wife's name, with me as a named driver
- Insurance company are aware that she is not the registered keeper

FWIW, I have my own car and am the registered keeper for that. On that car, the insurance is in my name and she is a named driver. The history is that we got rid of her last car, she took my old car and I bought a new one. We are not talking particularly fancy cars here. Crime reference number etc all as it should be.

My question is... is there any risk that the insurance company doesn't pay out?

No chance, you'll be fine.

[Pip1968]

I believe any potential 'issues' are solved by the fact that you are man and wife.

Hopefully they will recover the car and catch the sc#m.

Pip

[Marcellus]

I can't see any issue at all, if your wife has insurance covering a vehicle which she is not the registered keeper of and she told the insurers this when she took out the policy there's no question.

Or rather i hope not as we do this as my wife leases a car for 4 years drives it for 2 hands it over to me as we chop my car in for a new one which she leases for 4 years..... She does 25k pa i do 5k and it's significantly cheaper to lease a car for 15k pa than 25k.

[Sheepshanks]

Tommie38 said:

Situation:
- I am the registered keeper (this is the bit that concerns me)
- Car is driven by my wife as her main car
- Insurance was in my wife's name, with me as a named driver
- Insurance company are aware that she is not the registered keeper

I'm intrigued to know what you think the problem might be?

This is exactly the set-up on the car my wife uses. The insurer (LV=) told us that between husband and wife it didn't matter how it was done. Having said that it was slightly cheaper with her as policyholder.

I only put the policy into her name so she would benefit from DOC cover after her Dad tried to get her to drive his car insisting it would be OK "as it's fully comprehensive".

[steve2]

You will be fine, I own my wife's car ans am the registered keeper, she has insurance and I am named driver

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Unless you are 57 and she is 17, insurers couldn't give a damn about ownership or who is the policyholder/main driver between husband and wife.

[anonymous-user]

The husband/wife thing doesn't really matter in this case anyway, as long as it's declared that the driver isn't the RK they won't care. She could be some random person who wasn't related to you in any way, as long as it was declared properly there's no issue.

[General Fluff]

So if we insure my car in my wife's name and her car in my name the insurer's wouldn't care? I suspect this would be significantly cheaper overall.

[98elise]

General Fluff said:

So if we insure my car in my wife's name and her car in my name the insurer's wouldn't care? I suspect this would be significantly cheaper overall.

You just need to be truthful on

1. Who owns it
2. Who is the RK
3. Who is the main driver

All 3 are often the same person, but thay can be different people or entities.

I own all of our cars, I am RK for two and my wife is RK for one. The one my wife mostly drives she is neither owner or RK, but she's insured as the main driver. How we use our cars varies each year depending on what we own, so we insure the cars to reflect the reality at that time.

[KevinCamaroSS]

98elise said:

You just need to be truthful on

1. Who owns it
2. Who is the RK
3. Who is the main driver

All 3 are often the same person, but thay can be different people or entities.

I own all of our cars, I am RK for two and my wife is RK for one. The one my wife mostly drives she is neither owner or RK, but she's insured as the main driver. How we use our cars varies each year depending on what we own, so we insure the cars to reflect the reality at that time.

This.

We own three cars between us. My wife has her own car registered in her name and is the main user, I am a named driver. The opposite for my daily car. The third car is 75% mine/25% hers, is registered in my name with both of us on the insurance, neither is the main driver as it is roughly 50/50 although the insurance company says it will record me as main driver because it is in my name.

[cpjitservices]

I phoned Admiral the other night to start insurance on multi car.. I actually mentioned to them that my other car (I am the RK) is mainly used by my wife. It's on A shared use policy, so it really doesn't matter who the RK is.

As long as the car is covered...

[Tommie38]

Sheepshanks said:

I'm intrigued to know what you think the problem might be?

This is exactly the set-up on the car my wife uses. The insurer (LV=) told us that between husband and wife it didn't matter how it was done. Having said that it was slightly cheaper with her as policyholder.

I only put the policy into her name so she would benefit from DOC cover after her Dad tried to get her to drive his car insisting it would be OK "as it's fully comprehensive".

My main concern would be whether somebody questioned who owned the car, or whether the owner of the car was the only person that could insure it.

Taking the balance of views I suspect it will be fine. The insurance company haven't said it will be an issue.

[Tommie38]

Thanks for the responses everybody.

I'll update for record once I have a definite outcome.