Driving a courtesy car with your insurance

snips86x · 6 Sep 2014 at 07:51

Mother-in-law has been provided a 2014 Focus as a courtesy car. She's not a massive fan of it and we're heading into a nearby town to try and source a new car for her.

Now, I know you can have fully comp insurance (which I have) and drive most vehicles on 3rd party, but how does it work with a courtesy car? We've not got the insurance document so its hard to know for sure, but would I be able to drive it and be covered?

ins0mn1ac · 6 Sep 2014 at 08:08

Fully comp doesn't mean you're insured to drive anything else apart from your own car, not all policies cover driving other vehicles 3rd party, check with your insurer.

For example, fully comp for me with Hastings was JUST my car. Now I'm fully comp with eSure I can drive anything that is already privately insured.

ZG002 · 6 Sep 2014 at 08:16

I'm pretty sure drive other car normally excludes hire cars etc anyway.

snips86x · 6 Sep 2014 at 08:28

ins0mn1ac said:
Fully comp doesn't mean you're insured to drive anything else apart from your own car, not all policies cover driving other vehicles 3rd party, check with your insurer.

For example, fully comp for me with Hastings was JUST my car. Now I'm fully comp with eSure I can drive anything that is already privately insured.

I know, but in my case, I can!

ZG002 said:
I'm pretty sure drive other car normally excludes hire cars etc anyway.

That's kind of what we thought. Shame really!

delta0 · 6 Sep 2014 at 08:43

Courtesy cars normally come with their own insurance like a hire car.

Hades · 6 Sep 2014 at 09:17

delta0 said:
Courtesy cars normally come with their own insurance like a hire car.

And you need to be declared on that insurance to be covered.

I would phone up the providers of the car and ask whether you can be added.

snips86x · 6 Sep 2014 at 09:48

delta0 said:
Courtesy cars normally come with their own insurance like a hire car.

Hades said:
And you need to be declared on that insurance to be covered.

I would phone up the providers of the car and ask whether you can be added.

Cheers guys, just found the insurance doc! It does indeed state only the named driver!

K.C. Leblanc · 6 Sep 2014 at 10:25

snips86x said:
but would I be able to drive it and be covered?

Courtesy cars generally have their own insurance as part of the garage's trade policy.

There's a few things you have the bare in mind when using your own insurance.

1. It's a myth that you can drive other cars because you have fully comp. Some fully comp policies don't give cover on other cars. At the same time it is included in some 3rd party polices. Different insurers have different policies, you need to check the actual insurance policy.

2. The insurance is conditional on you having the owner's permission. Now this is a bigger issue then some people realize. If you lease a car of have a company car then you can't give people permission to drive it because you don't actually own the car.

3. The cover provided on other cars is 3rd party only!! Now I wouldn't want to be driving an almost new car with only 3rd party insurance.

EDIT: I have encountered garages who expect you to use your own insurance on their courtesy car. But they're generally small garages who have old low value cars are courtesy cars. Last time I encountered this I was being handed the key to a K reg Peugeot 405!!