Insuring fixer-uppers and other projects

Pinkythelabrat

A2OC Donor
Hello A2ers.

I’m looking for any tips or tricks when it comes to insuring cars bought as second (or third or fourth) cars when the plan is to have them as fixer uppers.

I just missed out an a super deal because I was checking I could get insurance at a reasonable price and someone got in there before me.

The insurance company wouldn’t count 15 years NCB as it was attached to another policy (does that make sense? I’ve had no claims in 15 years but that run of luck can only apply to one car?) and the cost was about the same as my main car I drove 15,000 a year.

Any tips from serial A2anonymous welcome - your names will be changed to protect your identity.

Thanks.

Alex.

Ps. It was a tdi90 sport for £350 - just saying! Perfect!


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Can't comment, I've got a traders policy that's about £90 a month. I've access to the MID so can add and remove cars as I wish. Only downside is they pay out bottom dollar if you claim.
 
I will be watching this with great interest.
I was on the phone with AF yesterday for 45 minutes and it was a waste of time.
My wife and I drive four cars, 3 A2s and a mini Cooper D
We alternate between them to keep them healthy for want of a better word.
The problem started when we was told that for us both to keep our no claims we would have to each be insured for two each.
For Frankie and Minty, both TDI 75s it would be 900 per year for me, we didn't bother to get a quote for my wife because for the same cover elsewhere my insurance is 460 for two cars.
 
Thinking about keeping Tarkus as a "project" to work on myself and not have to worry about taking too long to get it fixed for it to be a reliable daily driver, insurance was something in the back of my mind until I saw this thread, so I am interested how this goes.
 
I've got a trade policy, but they can be tricky to get as they're reluctant to give them out to 'the public'. They do give total freedom to come and go as you please but mines £210 a month (as Vantagemech says, you can get them for less), but I needed a business premises and books in order to get mine. I am reviewing mine actually as much of the cover (bodyshells, equipment and building) isn't really as appropriate as it was. Might consider a bare bones trade policy.

Much harder as a DIY'er which does make me wonder what all these home traders are doing. I very much doubt they've got these particular ducks in line.

A few things you can't do:

Put the car in someone else's name (but not insured) and say you're driving it with their permission: the car (I believe) needs it's own permanent policy to do that. You also wouldn't be able to tax it. Otherwise everyone would have a huge fleet of cars in their spouse's name but uninsured, have one of their own cars insured and run the rest as 'using with permission / 3rd party cover).

You can't use a day (or week / month) type policy to tax the car for the year. It might 'work' but certainly the T&C's of the Co's I looked at particularly exclude that as an option.

It is a tricky one and I think means you really have to choose your project cars wisely: there's just no point going through all this hassle for a car that's either not really worth doing or where there's no margin there. Almost better to keep it off the road. If it's a fixer-upper of course, there's nothing to stop you booking it into an MOT and day-insuring it for that. You're not taxing it as not required for the journey to or from a pre-booked MOT, so the day-insurance should be O.K.
 
Oh shoot. I’d hoped there was an easy answer somewhere.

Apparently an off-road and SORNed car, in your own garage or on your own property still requires insurance. It changed a few years ago apparently.

I’m not sure at what point it stops being a car if you are taking it apart...

Alex.


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Apparently an off-road and SORNed car, in your own garage or on your own property still requires insurance. It changed a few years ago apparently.




Really?
I have one on SORN at the moment and found this.


With a SORN, you don't have to pay for vehicle tax or buy insurance for your car – as long as it's kept off the roads. A SORN car can be kept in a garage, a driveway or on private property. If you park your car on the street, you'll still need to pay taxes and insurance, even if you're not driving it.1 Oct 2019

You beat me to it Steve
 
I've got all three of mine plus my Volvo C70 with Admiral. The Volvo is the one with all the NCB on it, my first A2 has two years, the second has one and the Storm was a new policy this year. I switched to Admiral before I bought the second one, but the two I've added with them they've given me a rate as if I already had a year NCB on them. All have my other half as named driver. I went with 7k annual mileage on the Volvo, 4k each on the first two A2's and 2k on the Storm, and the 17k total is probably 150% of the mileage I'll actually do this year. In all it's just shy of £750, the A2's are £133, £189 and £192. I had to do the usual legwork to beat them down on their renewal quote last time before I added the Storm, but I ended up with (then) three cars insured for less than the price of the two the previous year with one phone call. I expect they'd try even harder not to lose four policies this year.
 
Yes this insured / not insured when storing all came about because of the scare stories when continuous taxation became a thing. This was indeed mooted to be the case: insure that box of bits BSA in the loft or lose it.

Luckily the government quite correctly listened to all parties and compromised: declare SORN on anything with a log-book and off the road, but the punishment for driving a SORN'ed car on the road is, I believe, higher than a simple lapsed VED.
 
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I have also used another insurance option in the past, that of purely storage insurance but obviously it does not cover any driving activity on the public highway.
 
Ooh! I must have read a scare story! That’s great news.

I’ll need to read your link Steve but I wonder if a private car park would also be acceptably ‘off road’. Not my property but owned by my neighbours veterinary practice.


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Another option that might be viable, theres a guy near me that has a trailer parked in the street with some kind of resto going on atop of it. Not quite sure where the legalities lay but it's been there with a X19 and a Moggy minor on it over the past 2 or so years. Bloke has a drive as well...
 
Thanks for all the help.

You are quite right that a SORNed car doesn’t need insurance - nor does a car being dismantled.

Unfortunately the SORN regulations preclude public roads or places where the public have free access so the little car park is out.

I wish I had a driveway...


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Thanks for all the help.

You are quite right that a SORNed car doesn’t need insurance - nor does a car being dismantled.

Unfortunately the SORN regulations preclude public roads or places where the public have free access so the little car park is out.

I wish I had a driveway...


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I dont see the issue with 'little car park' public or not unless there is something in the SORN small print that states it must be sorn'ed at you own property
 
I dont see the issue with 'little car park' public or not unless there is something in the SORN small print that states it must be sorn'ed at you own property

I agree. 'Public access' I'd think is council car parks, leisure centres, village halls, hospitals etc. The public have a right and reason to be there and there is an element of public ownership.

The critical thing with the vets is that the puplic have no right to be there. They are granted access only by individual permission of the landowner by being a customer ('parking is for customers only'). Look at a farmyard come country business centre. That is absolutely private land, no question. You'll find all manner of things stored there: cars, vans, motorhomes etc. The public have no more right to be there than the vets. It might be busy, but the landowner decides who has access. If he moves the postbox to the end of the drive, the postman has no right to be there and nor does anyone else.

If the vet's car park is at the front with total road frontage (no wall) it might look quite public, but legally you'd have to imagine it would be no different to being tucked away down a drive at the back.

I think there is a more important point anyway: who cares? The police? Hardly, they haven't got enough manpower to investigate attacks, burglaries and shoplifting. I imagine you're not planning on doing donuts around the car park at 02:30 in the morning? ?

Bottom line, I'd spend a few mins Googling what is a public space, what is private. Make sure it's either black and white or at least a shade of grey that makes any risks negligible and go from there.

Me? I'd be going to the vets with a bottle of something and a winning smile ...
 
It does seem rather grey... ‘freely accessible by the public’ seems to be the kicker and it was discussed on some of the sites and it seemed to come down to that unless the public needed to cross some kind of barrier or obvious restriction (no entry sign or similar) then it was considered a ‘public place’ and SORN isn’t allowed.

I’m not sure I understand why the car becomes an issue in a public place, presumably there have been issues in the past to require this, but the car park is attached seamlessly to the Farmfood’s customer car park - with no delineation in purpose - so it’s out.

No easy fix for me - although I do have a friend with a lock up...

Ps. I’ve previously had fines for no MOT and no road tax issued by police and a warning for an indicator being out and low screen wash. The fines were on a new (to me) car which was supposed to have MOT and tax from the dealership (a while back). It sucks being on a main road which is one of two main routes back to a Police headquarters.


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