UKH

I am pondering replacing my car but almost certainly without selling my current car first; I thought I might have a couple of months of keeping two cars, just for the sake of not being rushed into selling my current car at too low a price, and conversely not being in the position where I've sold mine and have to rush to replace it, possibly not getting the ideal replacement car. 

I expected that it would be relatively simple and not horribly pricey, to initially put the second car onto my current insurance as an additional vehicle, and then when I sell my first car, either amend the policy or cancel and start afresh. 

It seems that this is not the case!

I am wondering what other peoples' experiences are with this - there must be plenty of people owning more than car, as main or sole keeper/driver. 

I currently have a Nissan 350Z, insured via Adrian Flux. I called them and they said that because my 350Z policy is with a specialist underwriter for "performance" cars, I can't add a "normal" car (I am looking at a Citroen C3 Picasso!) onto the policy. This may be where I differ to most, but even at that, I'd expect that amongst the UKC masses, there have been similar scenarios. 

If I put a Citroen C3 Picasso through an online quote with Aviva, it returns a reasonable premium (around £370 per year), however, this assumes it's the sole car and I have TRANSFERRED THE NCB. 

Of course if I am still running the Nissan, I can NOT transfer the NCB and would need the Citroen's policy to be starting with 0 years NCB, and bang, we are at £800!

Then I thought "what if I cancelled with Adrian Flux and started - for now - a brand new multi car policy to be later amended when I sell the Nissan". Put all the details through Aviva and it returned a very high premium of around £800-£1000 on the Nissan and £400 on the Citroen.


I naively thought that I might just be able to add a vehicle to an existing policy for LESS than it would cost for a normal new policy (say, £300 in this case)

It's thrown a spanner in the works. 

I have yet to ask at Adrian Flux if they can cancel current policy, and start a fresh multi-vehicle one, but I don't have strong hopes for that. 

All I can think of doing, is to start a fresh single vehicle separate quote on the Citroen at a high price, and then transfer the NCB when I sell the Nissan, and get a rebate commensurate with the lowered premium. 

I am aware I will get stung for the occasional admin fee here and there but I was assuming just twice, at maybe £40ish a pop. 

The whole thing seems unusual; as I say, the policy for my Nissan may be quirky in its restrictions. I was just wondering if others have had this much "hassle". I know car insurance in the UK can seem a weird intractable thing (see my comment on TobyA's thread, regarding it being difficult to shop for a car when you DON'T have a car and a current insurance policy!)

Any ideas/advice welcomed....

just insure your new car with the cheapest possible quote, moneysavingexpert.com are good for advice. You then just cancel your insurance with Adrian Flux when you sell your other car, you should then get a refund on that policy

Thanks, this was the plan, maybe I wasn't clear enough in the OP - "cheapest possible" is going to be disproportionately dear because whoever I go with, it'll have to start with 0 years NCB. Maybe I just need to suck it up / take it on the chin / choose-your-own-metaphor. I suppose in the grand scheme of car ownership, a few £100 extra is not the end of the world (plus your suggestion avoids at least one admin fee) - I was just surprised and it all somehow feels "wrong" in an "on principle" way.  

I have no experience of owning more than one car and adding one to an existing policy. I just thought it would be easy!

not easy anymore I'm afraid, each individual car that is on the road needs its own insurance policy, makes checks by the police much easier as they have a name. Once you cancel the insurance policy with adrian flux, the no claims you have with them can be transferred to another on the new car. Even if you have to cancel the cheap one.

Thanks, sounds like I maybe got caught out by having made an assumption; however, during a decent conversation with the nice chap at Adrian Flux, when I first asked about adding a second car, he didn't immediately suggest that this is no longer as simple as it perhaps used to be (I think that's what you are saying above - correct me if I am wrong, I could be interpreting wrongly) and he went off to check it without having said it might come back quite expensive - then as stated, came back and said it can't be done. When asking about a whole new policy he did, even before checking, suggest that it would be a bit pricey because of the NCB thing. 
OK it is all a learning curve, I'll manage my expectations and rethink it all! Thanks again

Generally speaking you have to earn the NCB on a second or third car in the same way that you did on the first. The only way to minimise the cost is to ensure that you use your highest NCB on the car that is most expensive to insure.

It may seem illogical but it is at least partly due to parents insuring a second car in their name with a child as a named driver.

Cheers. Sounds like it is much easier to add a driver to a car, than to add a car to a driver! I have indeed been naive and thought it was going to be kind of the same!

I think the problem is what you said in your Op, your current car is on a prestige policy. I had similar with a bike, I was insured with company A, I wanted to change bikes mid policy but company A didn't offer insurance for the bike I wanted so I had to start a new policy. 

Everyone assumes that all insurance companies cover all cars but that's not the case. 

If you have somewhere to park the Nissan off road safely why not sorn it and cancel or transfer the insurance to your replacement Citroen - obviously a risk with regard to the Nissan not being insured with regard to potential theft but other than that could solve your problem and you will then get a refund for the remaining tax on the Nissan. However test drive will not be possible for the potential Nissan buyer but worth a thought maybe?

Thanks. 

To be honest, a bit of whittling here and there is reducing the gap to an acceptable level....and I have arranged to go and view a glorified eggbox on wheels tomorrow...

Cheers, I did think about this earlier today but it's a lot of hassle leading to potentially more hassle. Only really worth it, IMHO, if I wanted to keep the Nissan for myself but have some time off from driving it.

An unrelated insurance question but I don't want to start too many car threads. 

If were to drive in Ireland do I need to have taken additional "foreign country" cover (it's only £28 extra btw)? 

I was about to suggest getting the Nissan off the road too - but not cancelling its road tax. Transfer the insurance and NCB to the new car, and then buy day insurance for the Nissan when you need to give people test drives.

And do something to make it really hard to steal, because you'll no longer have theft insurance... if you have a driveway keep it blocked in as much as possible, or even remove a wheel. 

I don't have a driveway. I'd either have to rent a garage, or keep it at my parents' house taking up space in their garage and very inconvenient for trying to sell (it's 2.5 hours away from me). No other options that don't involve massively imposing on friends. Thanks for the thought though! I know in some cases it's quite easy to SORN on a whim. Not in my life!

That's a pain.  I don't think there is a sensible way to manage this - as you've found out, NCB is really only for one 'thread' of insurance, and when you get a new car it has to starts its own thread.  I suspect a lot of people just don't insure the new one until they sell the old one, and hope that it's not noticed. 

The multi-car policies were very expensive in their own right (at least when I last looked, a few years back) and wouldn't help that much even if you could convince your broker to start one up.

I briefly had three cars on the go - my MG, our camper, and a little Rover for my wife to learn in!  I was accruing three separate sets of NCB...

If I were you, I would:

* buy the Picasso.  Don't insure it, get one day's insurance (it'll be a tenner or so), drive it somewhere off road, leave it as secure as possible.  Maybe your parents' drive, or see if you can bribe a friend or neighbour?  Maybe even try one of those 'driveway for rent' schemes and negotiate a long term spot?

* take your time to sell the Nissan

* once it's gone, transfer that insurance to the Picasso, and then go get it. 

I got mirror NCB.  You could ask about that. 

One option is to use Tempcover, Cuvva or similar to do a temporary policy (up to 28 days but you can just take out another one afterwards) on one of the two.

This was mentioned by the chap at Adrian Flux and it ended up not being applicable 🙁

When I bought a new (to me) car, my existing insurer covered both vehicles on the same policy for 14 days.

Thanks. I think it might take longer than 14 days for me to find the right buyer (and right PRICE) for my 350Z though 

How annoying.  Oh well.  

Is the Nissan over 15 years old? Can you transfer your insurance and NCB to the new car and put the Nissan on classic cover with very limited mileage?

Oh! Quite possibly, I will look into that, thanks! Yes it is over 15 years old

I transferred the main policy to the new vehicle and got temporary cover on the old vehicle for two weeks, which my provider allowed weekly or fort-nightly extensions (at a price) till I sold it.

Thanks

Your policy will have something in it defining the geographical coverage, you need to see if that covers Ireland.  I've never had a policy with anything near that level of restriction though.

Thanks. It’s currently a moot point, as it turns out. I’ll check it as and when it comes up in future, if at all 

Ive just gone through it all today on my wifes insurance a real pain to start with , she had a a Peugeot 207 and a Fiat Dobie van ,

sold the fiat and bought a BMW x3 with the same insurance company was £800 for the x3 with 1 year no claims then argueing reduced to £ 528 .---the 207 with full no claims £174 as what I paid 2 months ago .

So checked out compare website best price for X3 was now £ 465,

Stay with me went direct to LV insurance and got £337.95 Comprehensive insuance and 180 day in the EU including protected NCD and legal Protection .

My wife is in her 50s don't tell her I said that.

so shop around.

hope it helps.

keith s

Try Novo. I have a Tesla Model 3 performance insured on the same policy as a 17 year old Honda CR-V. It's not particularly cheap, but that's because I live in Bradford, have 9 point on my license and only 3 years no claims. The additional cost for the Honda was negligible.

Hi Keith - thanks for your reply. Something that is not clear to me though - is the Peugeot 207 on a totally separate policy and are your quotes only for the change from the Fiat to the X3?

Thanks, I had not heard of them. I guess you are suggesting putting through a new quote for a multi car thingy? 

You can't do that any more unfortunately, there is a requirement for continuous insurance for any car that isn't SORNed.

Thanks, that saves me a bit of time researching (I am assuming you are right )

Oh hell - you are quite right.  I wonder when that changed?

Are Adrian Flux completely unable to do a mirror policy and insure both for a few weeks?

It was roughly the same time (possibly a bit later) as they decoupled insurance from tax.  Few years ago now.

I didn’t ask about “a few weeks” as I assume that it would take longer than that to sell my 350Z so I just asked them to treat it as long term, to be amended when needed

The 207 on the original RAC insurance.

The Fiat was on a separate insurance cover because it was a van from Post Office without any no claims discount which when sold,-- she had accumulated 1 year no claims transferred onto the X3 then went direct to LV with the X3

I tried to put the X3 on with RAC hence the £800 and then down to £528 with RAC .

Hope that is clearer I spent nearly a morning sorting it and RAC was just too expensive,.

You have to talk to the insurers as they sometimes just don't get it.

keith s 

You would expect the cheapest car to insure would be the cheapest car, or the slowest car, most common, or the car with the cheapest parts, or the car driven by the slowest drivers,   perhaps electric ?

But Mirror online is currently declaring the MX5 cheapest car to insure.   Why ?

I think a lot of it is to do with driver profiles.  The MX-5 is not the choice of the boy racer - I would guess that most of them are now owned by people in their forties or fifties, and they don't tend to crash much.  A lot are also second cars with lower milages.

My MGF was always surprisingly cheap to insure.

No rear seats (ditto the MGF) , so potential for injury or death of passengers is lower. It’s the same reason that the insurance on my Nissan 350Z is not eye watering 

A few points to add to the useful info already posted.

- Look at racking up the excess to reduce premiums.
- I ran the posher cars on my original NCB and got a knackered Volvo 340DL from relatives in order to build up new NCB.
- It can reduce the premium if you get a second (mature) driver.

Currently running the compromise Q5 - much cheaper than two cars, does most things and is fun to drive. Zero value for street cred though, and irritatingly the speed cameras don't seem to care.

Thanks, I did know about racking up the excess and adding drivers. The latter proved useful to me maybe 10 years ago but now seems to ADD a small increment instead of any reduction ! But worth mentioning on this thread as they are both useful tips for anyone else reading. 

And occupation, rabbi, isn't it ?

Thanks everyone for replies and advice etc. It’s been very helpful, a real learning curve. This thread is a great example of how an online community of this nature can be very helpful, far better (even though I don’t KNOW - or trust🤣😜😘) -  any of you, than simply doing an Internet search and getting confusing advice from true randommers. 

I don’t think this needs much further input but such input is not unwelcome. Essentially this boils down to “it will cost me £200-£300 more than I’d assumed, but I am not being ripped off or losing out, it’s just how it is 

Yep.

Funnily enough, I just idly put the Nissan through a couple of automatic online quotes, one with Footman James (whose form seemed to skip a lot of the normal questions) and one through Lancaster. 
I put down 3000 miles annually, on both. 

I am currently insured with, or via, Adrian Flux, with the Nissan as sole car, 12000 miles a year including business use. 

Footman James gave me a quote nearly £200 higher than what I currently pay!

Lancaster, around £90 higher. 

I'll ring Adrian Flux in the morning! (they don't offer online quotes)