Two car insurance - how do I make this work?

[Tidybeard]

Hello, I wonder if I can summon the wisdom of PH please?

I'm currently running a single car but am thinking of a weekend toy (at the moment an R129 Merc SL500 is top of the list).

I'm 40 and live in rural Cheshire on a farm with private gated driveway around 50m from the nearest road.

I had a couple of 3pts/£60 fines in 2007 (non-speeding) and an SP50 in 2009 which I stupidly contested (90mph on motorway, was offered 3pts and £60 but didn't believe the speed so went to court and ended up with 4pts and £150). I must declare all these convictions on an application as they were within the last five years.

I have 10 years no claims bonus (and haven't made a claim in that period). I've never been banned or had any endorsement other than fixed penalties and have been driving for 22 years. In general, I'm a pretty careful driver.

I'm currently paying around £1k to insure my 58 reg A8 TDI sport which was about the best option at last renewal.

I assumed that if I picked up a weekend car that was kept on the driveway and did less than 5000 miles per year I would only be paying a few hundred pounds for insurance but having done three online quotes the cheapest so far (using Admiral multi-car) was just over £1k for the Audi and around the same (within £20) for an example Merc SL500 (assumed a 96 registration, approx value £8k, less than 5k miles per year, kept on driveway overnight), thus doubling my premium. The others (just for the Merc) were £1800 and £2400!

This means I can drive up to 30,000 miles per year for business or pleasure in my A8 valued around £23k and leave it anywhere for the same price as a 15 year old Merc that will do less than 5,000 miles and live on my locked driveway whenever it's not being used - that can't be right can it?

I'm sure lots of you run second and third cars - how do you make it work sensibly financially please?

Many thanks,

TB

[Chrisw666]

The R129 will probably be eligible for classic insurance.

Zollar will be along in a few seconds but IMO multicar works best for 2 or more daily use cars rather than a normal car and a specialist one.

[Uhura fighter]

Get the merc on a classic policy. (Nice cars)

[roachcoach]

Remember you won't have any NCD on the second car

[alfa pint]

I went on Admiral's multicar policy. All 3 cars insured for £10 a month more than I used to pay for just the Alfa on a normal policy.

Bizarrely, the cheapest of the 3 cars to insure (99 Alfa Spider, 79 MG B in near concourse nick and missus' 98 V40, fecked condition) was actually the Alfa!

[Tidybeard]

Thanks for the quick responses.

Since my current insurer had me on hold while they went to speak to the underwriters about how much they would charge me to add the Merc, I did another search on PH for Classic Car insurance. It seems a lot of people have good deals by going this way but apart from Adrian Flux, hardly any of the insurers are actually mentioned by name - can anyone name some of the good classic car insurers that handle this type of business please?

Oh, and my current insurer came back with (as long as I also have a tracker fitted).........£6346.74 p.a.

[Uhura fighter]

Gone through Perfomance direct in the past for my classic.

[sday12]

Tidybeard said:

Thanks for the quick responses.

Since my current insurer had me on hold while they went to speak to the underwriters about how much they would charge me to add the Merc, I did another search on PH for Classic Car insurance. It seems a lot of people have good deals by going this way but apart from Adrian Flux, hardly any of the insurers are actually mentioned by name - can anyone name some of the good classic car insurers that handle this type of business please?

Oh, and my current insurer came back with (as long as I also have a tracker fitted).........£6346.74 p.a.

Lancaster, Footman James. HTH

[ZOLLAR]

Tidybeard said:

Hello, I wonder if I can summon the wisdom of PH please?

I'm currently running a single car but am thinking of a weekend toy (at the moment an R129 Merc SL500 is top of the list).

I'm 40 and live in rural Cheshire on a farm with private gated driveway around 50m from the nearest road.

I had a couple of 3pts/£60 fines in 2007 (non-speeding) and an SP50 in 2009 which I stupidly contested (90mph on motorway, was offered 3pts and £60 but didn't believe the speed so went to court and ended up with 4pts and £150). I must declare all these convictions on an application as they were within the last five years.

I have 10 years no claims bonus (and haven't made a claim in that period). I've never been banned or had any endorsement other than fixed penalties and have been driving for 22 years. In general, I'm a pretty careful driver.

I'm currently paying around £1k to insure my 58 reg A8 TDI sport which was about the best option at last renewal.

I assumed that if I picked up a weekend car that was kept on the driveway and did less than 5000 miles per year I would only be paying a few hundred pounds for insurance but having done three online quotes the cheapest so far (using Admiral multi-car) was just over £1k for the Audi and around the same (within £20) for an example Merc SL500 (assumed a 96 registration, approx value £8k, less than 5k miles per year, kept on driveway overnight), thus doubling my premium. The others (just for the Merc) were £1800 and £2400!

This means I can drive up to 30,000 miles per year for business or pleasure in my A8 valued around £23k and leave it anywhere for the same price as a 15 year old Merc that will do less than 5,000 miles and live on my locked driveway whenever it's not being used - that can't be right can it?

I'm sure lots of you run second and third cars - how do you make it work sensibly financially please?

Many thanks,

TB

Unfortunately there is no straight answer as to how to get cheap insurance at the moment, premiums are high due to a number of reasons which have been covered extensively on PH and the news so I won't de-rail the thread with listing them .
Although it may sound strange having a car off road behind a gate doesn't mean that the risk is hugely reduced remember theft accounts for a smaller percentage of claims than accidents out and about etc which are away from the home.
I'd wager your points are having a considerable affect on your premiums, from what I can figure out (I'm abit slow today ) you have 7 points on your licence in the current climate that will have quite an affect on your costs.
Considering your 3 points move outside the 5 year period in the next year you could either take the hit of a high premium this year or wait one year in which you would only need to declare 4 points (although the temptation of an SL500 may prove difficult to put off for a year).
As said a classic policy may be a good option, may I ask the quote with multicar, do you have your NCB "mirrored" onto the SL500?.

[Tidybeard]

ZOLLAR said:

Unfortunately there is no straight answer as to how to get cheap insurance at the moment, premiums are high due to a number of reasons which have been covered extensively on PH and the news so I won't de-rail the thread with listing them .
Although it may sound strange having a car off road behind a gate doesn't mean that the risk is hugely reduced remember theft accounts for a smaller percentage of claims than accidents out and about etc which are away from the home.
I'd wager your points are having a considerable affect on your premiums, from what I can figure out (I'm abit slow today ) you have 7 points on your licence in the current climate that will have quite an affect on your costs.
Considering your 3 points move outside the 5 year period in the next year you could either take the hit of a high premium this year or wait one year in which you would only need to declare 4 points (although the temptation of an SL500 may prove difficult to put off for a year).
As said a classic policy may be a good option, may I ask the quote with multicar, do you have your NCB "mirrored" onto the SL500?.

Thanks again for all the responses, I'll try the companies listed.

Regarding the above from Zollar, I currently have 4 points "live" (i.e. less than 3 years old) and six points that are older than 3 years but less than 5 years. The six points will go beyond the 5 year stage in December 2012.

On the multicar quote I did include the 10 years NCB for both cars. It seems that even though the R129 SL500 is getting on a bit, it's still in a very high insurance group (Allianz said 49 which is their top group). Is it very stealable, or just very expensive to fix if it gets badly bent?

I don't necessarily want "cheap" insurance as I have found you get what you pay for but the quotes at the moment do seem excessive.

Will try the classic companies listed above and would still welcome any others to try.

[philly]

For a Classic Car policy also talk to Carole Nash. Whilst I never had a claim they were always very helpful and competitive price-wise.

[sa v8 mate]

I tried a 2 car policy, didn't work for me. £650 for my dd ('59 300c) and £330 for my w/end toy ( 2001 v8 mustang, 3k miles p/a, value 8k)was the best I could get. I'm quite happy with that tbh.

[Tidybeard]

Thanks again.

Performance Direct wanted £1100, Footman James didn't answer the phone after 15 mins so I gave up. Haven't had the chance to try Lancaster yet, will give them a go tomorrow along with Carole Nash.

If no joy from them it looks like this isn't going to happen, which will be extremely frustrating.

Maybe I'll have to take a leaf out of the 80's book and get my Mum to take out a policy and I'll be a named driver. Except she's 70 with a bad hip. :-)