You are no doubt aware that the vast majority of car insurance policies run for a period of 12 months. However, even at the end of that period, unless you tell the insurance provider otherwise, they will just renew your policy for another year.
There may be a benefit in considering temporary car insurance in certain situations.
There may be one or more instances when cover is required for a very short period of time for either you to drive someone else’s car or for another person to be able to drive your car. That period could be for a day or up to say a month. In which case, it may be more cost effective to arrange temporary car insurance rather than take out a normal policy that lasts for a year.
One of the reasons for this is that if you added someone to your existing policy as an additional driver with the intention of only letting them have access to driving your car for say a day and then asked the insurer to remove them at the end of that period you could be charged an administration fee that may exceed what the cost may have been to arrange short-term car insurance cover.
So, when may you need temporary car insurance?
Your son or daughter could be returning home from university for a few days and would like to be able to drive your car to visit friends. You may be going into hospital and your partner may not be able to drive so having someone else be able to drive your car to ferry your spouse about to and from the hospital and to do shopping may prove beneficial. You could be making a long trip for a short break and, as your car is not reliable, borrow a friends or relative’s car and wish to be insured to drive it.
Do bear in mind that if you were involved in an accident driving another car covered by a temporary car insurance policy that this would not impact on your no-claims bonus on your existing car insurance.
There are a number of providers of this type of insurance cover so it is worth shopping around. When doing so, do compare the cost of temporary cover with adding someone to your existing policy or being added to someone else’s policy to make sure whether it is financially viable.
