How Does Temporary Insurance Work and What Are the Pitfalls?
Many companies offer temporary insurance cover, also sometimes referred to as pay as you go insurance. This lets you insure a person to drive your car for a few hours at a time without invalidating your main policy.
How Does Temporary Insurance Work?
Some companies offer flexible hourly car insurance or daily car insurance cover. You’ll create an account, you’ll add your car’s registration, you’ll choose how long you want cover for, and then you’re good to go.
It’s certainly possible to save money temporary insurance. Why take out a full policy if you’ll only be borrowing a car or lending your car for an hour or so?
But before you decide to use temporary cover, you should be aware of certain limitations and pitfalls.
The Downsides of Temporary Insurance
This sort of insurance is inherently risky. Say you take out temporary insurance so that your friend can drive your car for a few hours. Let’s say they’re moving to a new house. You’re not exactly sure just how long this will take, so you take out a temporary four hour insurance policy.
In this case, they’ll only be covered for those four hours. There’ll be no margin of error, and no room for delays. So if they’re held up in traffic, or if their move takes longer than expected, they may drive for longer than their permitted duration.
In this case, as the main policy holder you would have to pay an outlay, as you’ll have technically permitted an uninsured driver to use your vehicle and you wouldn’t have the legally required insurance in place. This would be an expensive mistake, which would undo any money you saved with your temporary cover.
Is Temporary Insurance Right for You?
But if you have a friend who wants to borrow your car for a set amount of time, it might be a good idea to cover them by the hour, or by the day. You’ll have to be extremely strict, though. You’ll have to make sure your friend only drives your car for the agreed amount of time. And no matter how much you trust them, delays can happen. Before you know it, you could face a pricey outlay charge.
We don’t think it’s worth the risk. A standard policy is steadier and more reliable than any temporary insurance policy, and the potential downsides outweigh the potential savings you could make with temporary insurance cover.
If you have any questions about the sort of cover you need, just get in touch and we’ll be happy to help. Give us a call on 0330 024 4747, or email us at customer.services@gogirl.co.uk.
