insurance and covid 19

Our insurance and road tax are coming up for renewal and we are considering our options.
As we are not able to go out for even the day with the present restrictions we are going to SORN the van. That seems straight forward enough, as if the restrictions are lifted we can just renew it. However paying for fully comprehensive insurance when we can't take it off the drive does seem unnecessary / stupid. In my youth we were able to get third party, fire and theft at a reduced cost. Has anyone found a supplier of this form of insurance or indeed come up with an idea or than insuring or not

Adrian Flux are offering some sort of insurance which covers fire, theft but not on road. They call it laid up insurance.
Standard TPF&T is virtually same cost as comp, so not worth changing to that.

Before we updated our car last year, our old one had such a low value I couldn't see the point in having fully comprehensive cover so when renewal came up I got comparison quotes for Third party, Fire and Theft ; they were either the same cost or in some cases higher premiums than fully comp. When I queried it I was told that all of the main underwriters base their most competitive quotes on a bog standard template which included fully comp, any deviation from that increased the cost.

It does seems insurance companies are trying to keep up their profits. I tried to get a reduction on my motorcycle insurance last month as they won't be on the road anytime soon. The most they agreed to was a slightly lower premium for reduced annual mileage. I accepted this.
I also got a reduction for the same reason with the car, as that isn't getting used as much.
 I have a stated 5000 miles a year on the van insurance, I'll see about reducing that when renewal time comes later in the year.
Al.

I've read that Admiral Insurance is giving a refund of £25 to all their customers due to reduced use.

rogerblack wrote:Before we updated our car last year, our old one had such a low value I couldn't see the point in having fully comprehensive cover so when renewal came up I got comparison quotes for Third party, Fire and Theft ; they were either the same cost or in some cases higher premiums than fully comp. When I queried it I was told that all of the main underwriters base their most competitive quotes on a bog standard template which included fully comp, any deviation from that increased the cost.

That's often the case with all vehicles including mh's. Like you though i always thought it an oddity and to have TPF&T just made no sense.

Watch out for admin charges if you make amendments during your policy, which more than like wipe out any savings.

Lets hope others follow Admiral as in Pauls post, but we are talking about Insurance Co's here
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Richard

Thanks for the replies. However I do wonder how people will start to feel if, for very good reasons, we are not able to enjoy the use of our vehicles but still have to pay full price for possibly 6 months or more.
Thanks all.
By the way my wife and I do use the van every morning by taking our coffee and biscuits into the van and then deciding which cafe we are visiting today. Recently we have been to Balnakiel near Durness, The House of Bruar, Burford and Azay Le Rideau. To name just a few.
Tomorrow I am hoping we can visit Halle near Innsbruck. Happy dreams everybody.

pootler wrote:1) Thanks for the replies. However I do wonder how people will start to feel if, for very good reasons, we are not able to enjoy the use of our vehicles but still have to pay full price for possibly 6 months or more.
Thanks all.

2) By the way my wife and I do use the van every morning by taking our coffee and biscuits into the van and then deciding which cafe we are visiting today. Recently we have been to Balnakiel near Durness, The House of Bruar, Burford and Azay Le Rideau. To name just a few.
Tomorrow I am hoping we can visit Halle near Innsbruck. Happy dreams everybody.

1) The same as everyone else with a vehicle. Alternatively you could sell your house and live fulltime in your van but good luck with that in UK! The upside is it's crashed the price of US crude to the point they are paying buyers to take the stuff away! Not that anyone in UK will benefit from price cuts in fuel.

2) I'm assuming the cafe 'visits' are virtual reality?!! 

I’ve sorned my van as it was coming up for re taxing at end of month. I checked Caravan Club insurance was ok with this & they said normally they would have to change the policy to a Third party fire & theft but in the current situation they are allowing policies to continue as is with vehicles sorned.

Hi.
If anyone would like a quotation for laid up insurance then please feel free to drop me a line.
Regards,
Dan.

Sorned my Van a few weeks ago and LV changed my cover to fire and theft. Third party was pointless as third parties are not going to be in my back garden. The price was reduced from £259 to £79. I also reduced the mileage expectation on the cars during the lock down, which saved a few more pounds.

Roger

Roger G wrote:Sorned my Van a few weeks ago and LV changed my cover to fire and theft. Third party was pointless as third parties are not going to be in my back garden. The price was reduced from £259 to £79. I also reduced the mileage expectation on the cars during the lock down, which saved a few more pounds.

Roger

Did they charge you for the changes to your policy's?
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Richard

C&MC Mag today has piece about insurance during SORN

[quote="Aldercow"]I’ve sorned my van as it was coming up for re taxing at end of month. I checked Caravan Club insurance was ok with this & they said normally they would have to change the policy to a Third party fire & theft but in the current situation they are allowing policies to continue as is with vehicles sorned.[/quote]
Very interesting indeed, thanks for that.

What the status of the road tax is has any bearing on the risk factor to the insurance company seems beyond me. Why they feel the need to (in normal times) change the policy if you don't want to use it for a month or two appears odd.

We have more than one vehicle and occasionally sorn one of them, sometimes for the winter. Once we needed to use one of them for a couple of days so taxed it, then sorned it again at the end of that month. Never would have thought to tell the insurance company.

Same here, I own seven road going vehicles, and more or less depending on if the sun's shining, some are SORN'd or taxed on a whim at the end of a month. I've never yet seen reason to inform the various insurance companies involved. They're all insured continuously.
Al.

Have sorn both vans kept insurance on them, insurance company said it didn`t make any difference to the insurance, mine for the Topaz is cheaper than it was last year, so a bonus.

rgermain wrote:

Roger G wrote:Sorned my Van a few weeks ago and LV changed my cover to fire and theft. Third party was pointless as third parties are not going to be in my back garden. The price was reduced from £259 to £79. I also reduced the mileage expectation on the cars during the lock down, which saved a few more pounds.

Roger

Did they charge you for the changes to your policy's?
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Richard

Sorry Richard, I missed your post. They didn't charge me anything for the change, which surprised me, but I didn't complain :-)

Roger

I just renewed the car insurance with LV and asked to reduce mileage to 5000 from 8000 but it made no difference so left as it was. £30 increase on last year but still cheaper than elsewhere.

Paulmold wrote:Adrian Flux are offering some sort of insurance which covers fire, theft but not on road. They call it laid up insurance.
Standard TPF&T is virtually same cost as comp, so not worth changing to that.

I was extremely disappointed with Adrian Flux.  My MoT expired (just before the cut-off for an extension) and I had SORNed it. 

The insurance expires today and so I called a couple of weeks ago.  After hanging on the phone for 15 minutes I was told there would be no reduction for "laid-up" insurance (though they would waive their £25 fee). 

Very generous, especially as over £90 of the premium was for breakdown insurance!

Needless to say, I declined to renew!