Another insurance thread. Please help!

sand_dune

sand_dune

sand_dune

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Joined
5 Oct 2009
Posts
483
Hi,

I need some help please. I'm trying to insure a vehicle in slightly different circumstances than most. I am totally lost in how to make it work. So I hope to get some valuable advice. Quotes are all over the place with some reaching £30.000 and the internet is full of spam - ads ads and ads. Impossible to google for any advice from real people.

I bought a van a few days ago. I will be converting it into a stealth camper van, but right now it's just a panel van(want to insure it as a van). I've had no driving license, got a provisional just now. The van is going to be used just for leisure, with limited annual mileage. It's now parked in a rented private space behind houses away from the road. Btw the van is very good condition from 2012 Mercedes.

I want my girlfriend to drive the van. She's got full UK license. We're both EU nationals not UK. My girlfriend has had her car/van license since 2003 and her UK license since 2013 with no accidents. I am the owner of the vehicle though and I need the insurance ASAP - can't be losing time to wait for V5 to arrive from DVLA and then transfer ownership to her and wait again and pay tax again, as I've just paid for a year.

Sounds simple to me. Experienced driver with no accidents for 13 years, female, living at the same address as the owner of the vehicle. She's employed, I'm not (hoping to be in a month's time). I want someone to look at her, at us and give us a quote that is not out of this world. Other people pay hundreds. I can pay a thousand or so, preferably less.

I live near Gatwick, no insurance brokers here. I am prepared to travel to nearby towns to meet any insurance people face to face, not those who use a directory to produce those ridiculous quotes. But who can be sensible. I'm a responsible person I also have a yacht, which I insure for £50.000 and pay just £300. I wonder if those people can help me with anything.

Any advice? Any particular insurance brokers to go to? Thanks.
 
Assuming you've tried googling "camper van insurance brokers" and called companies like Adrian Flux, Sky insurance, etc etc there may well be very little you can do. The combination of non UK nationality, provisional licence, being unemployed and wanting to insure an unusual vehicle is going to make getting any kind of sensible quote very difficult.

Insurance companies, even face to face brokers, can't simply ignore statistics and give you a cheap quote because you seem like a responsible person and have a yacht. I'm insured on a few cars with a collective value of almost €1 million but if I go on holiday, car rental companies won't insure me on anything bigger than a Clio, and even then they charge an enormous sum. It's just the way these things work really, I know it's not very helpful for me to say at this point but you should really have checked insurance before you went ahead and bought the van.
 
They want my girlfriend to be my wife or own the vehicle(even suggest transfering ownership) to cause no trouble, then I got quotes under 1k. This phases out wrong nationality and unusualness of the vehicle. So implied higher risks have no case here, as the risk is the same. A private insurer could assess it. Companies I called were those dreadful catalogues of insurers. I did call Adrian Flux (ended up talking to A-plan somehow).

I had Aviva offer me 1.35k premium, having considered my situation. I could not reproduce that quote the next day with the online quoting system. If nothing else works, I can come back to them and ask to do it again. Just found the reference number for Aviva quote. £1362 is a lot of money for us in any case.
 
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Are you (or the GF) going to use the van before it's converted? If not, it might be worth SORNing the vehicle, getting a SORN or laid-up policy, basically covering fire, theft etc without the road risk element.
 
Gatwick postcode, van, no actual license etc and you expect quotes of under 1k? I'll be honest and say be realistic. Insurance is not cheap. Once you get a proper license which actually allows you to drive on your own, legally, the price will be even higher. My first car, 18months ago was 2.6k to insure.
 
SORN makes sense - something to look into. Although we're likely to insure. Might even insure for a day before that to fetch some things from another town. Funny how we can arrange short term insurances that would equal £2300 per year, but many annual quotes are higher than that.

One thing I just found out that if I cancel my vehicle tax I get a proportional refund, that is awesome! I didn't feel good about potentially wasting £230. Yes, I'm thinking about transferring ownership to my girlfriend, since I mentioned this solution in my opening post. This may incidentally result in lower premiums once I wish to join her policy as a second driver.

I am very uncomfortable with the time scale of these events though. I wanted to start using the van outright.
 
I could be wrong but I'm sure you cant drive a van without doing another test? I have a van on the back of my licence but the wife who passed 2 years ago doesn't.
 
why do you need to transfer her name on to the V5?
the V5 is just the registered keeper, has nothing to do with ownership or primary person on insurance

if you want to tell them that she is the owner of the vehicle they won't bat an eyelid that its your name on the V5, they won't even check
 
koooowweeee said:
I could be wrong but I'm sure you cant drive a van without doing another test? I have a van on the back of my licence but the wife who passed 2 years ago doesn't.
Click to expand...

You can drive any motor vehicle except special ones (and bikes) up to 3500kg on a class B (car) licence. Those who have had their licence since before 1st jan 97 can drive up to 7500kg. Most box/luton/lwb vans are 3500kg max mass.
 
I use Brentacre for my van converted to a camper. They are really flexible in what you can do to you can and don't up the premium unless your mods up the performance. Used to give a discount to members of T4 Forum - not sure if they still do.
 
Have you tried Esure? They are not bothered about who the registered keeper of the vehicle is, so should be fine to insure in your girlfriends name.
 
Kaeo said:
You can drive any motor vehicle except special ones (and bikes) up to 3500kg on a class B (car) licence. Those who have had their licence since before 1st jan 97 can drive up to 7500kg. Most box/luton/lwb vans are 3500kg max mass.
Click to expand...

Yeah i looked in to it a little bit. I drive a 3.5t van everyday but looking at my wife's license it doesn't show the van on it. It's just a car.

So my thinking was that it's only a class 4 (think it's 4 anyway) were as my van is a class 7. The class 4 is the same as a car.


I wonder why it's not on the back of a new license then?
 
Thanks for advice guys.

About the V5 - I didn't really know what is what there. I wonder then why insurance agents never suggested me to put my girlfriend's name as a registered keeper. Can I try contacting the place with the cheapest quote and not even speaking of me, just of my girlfriend? At some point I think they ask who the owner is. And then they don't go ahead.

Esure - just checked, i think they only insure cars.

Brentacre - wouldn't do it on original terms, they wanted something to be transferred to my gf. I assumed it entails sending V5 something to DVLA, so I didn't even ask what else I can do.

I ended up calling Aviva and they didn't mind my situation and did it for under 1400. I can look for something better and get a pro-rata refund from them minus £35 admin fee.

helpimcrap
sorry did not understand your question about campervans.
 
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