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SORN / Laid Up insurance


Umster

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All, 

 

What advice do fellow members have for insuring a car that's SORN. Spoke to my current insurance provider and according to their Ts and Cs they cancel any policy on a vehicle which is SORN. 

 

It'll save me in the region of 500 GBP for insurance and approx 50 GBP a month in road tax while its parked up over the winter. 

 

Do we have any recommended providers? Is it worth saving the pennies over the winter to plough back into the car before Japfest? Who has done something similar? 

 

Umster 

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Out of curiosity who is your insurance provider? I’ve never heard of this happening in 30+ years of driving, however reading this got me thinking so I’ve just read my policy documents, then phoned my insurance provider (Adrian Flux) to clarify and they’ve confirmed that they would never cancel a policy due to a vehicle being sorned. 

It seems strange they would cancel, as you would still require the vehicle to be insured for theft purposes 

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So I'm currently with Admiral on a multi car policy. I only have 1 year NCB (was on the tube for last few years so never needed a car) and I've had the policy for 3 months now. 

 

Admiral have said (over the phone albeit) that I would lose anything I'd gained towards my next year NCB. 

 

Quick Google says that Admiral are the worst for this type of stuff but I'm getting what I paid for so no massive gripes. 

 

My other half is the policy holder for the other car and she wants to build her NCB too, so no chance of me transferring to that car. 

 

Thinking it's probably best just keeping the Z parked up and paying tax and insurance, just in case we do need it and to build up the NCB. I can afford to do that but it's wasted hard earned money in the short term.

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HI,

 

Your 1 Years earned NCB will remain, it has a shelf life of up to 2 years with most insurers but yes you wont get anything for the 3 months obviously.

 

In regards to cancelling the policy, i would imagine they charge an admin fee for doing this, so its up to you if your happy with this to make the saving over the winter.

 

Some insurers would allow the policy to be amended to fire and theft only cover, however your NCB is normally removed during this time and put back onto the policy when it goes back on the road.  However i dont know if Admiral would do this for you.  If you plan on doing this each year it would then cause the issue of not increasing your NCB as you would never do the full year so need to weigh up ur options, it might be worth just leaving insured declaring SORN so just making the saving on tax..... and by this i mean dont tell admiral you have declared as SORN

 

Ideal thing would be to change to fire and theft cover to keep the policy going but as i said its unlikely that admiral would do this but would be worth asking.

 

Hope this makes sense :wacko:

 

 

 

Edited by CAL-85
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47 minutes ago, Ekona said:

Post up their ts and cs where it says this, as that sounds very odd. 

FYI I got bored and had a look myself. There’s nothing in them at all about cancelling if you SORN, so they can’t do that. I suspect they’ve got confused when you told them about the car being laid up, as they don’t do laid up policies at all. 

 

I’m the first person to say that you should tell your insurer everything, but I wouldn’t dream (and never have) of telling mine if I was sorning the car for a bit. 

 

Personally I’d look at simply reducing the mileage limit to the minimum they offer to reduce the cost, and then go with that. Or just carry on using it, it’s just a car after all and a modern one at that, it’ll be fine. How much was the policy overall, and are you paying monthly?

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20 minutes ago, Ekona said:

FYI I got bored and had a look myself. There’s nothing in them at all about cancelling if you SORN, so they can’t do that. I suspect they’ve got confused when you told them about the car being laid up, as they don’t do laid up policies at all. 

 

I’m the first person to say that you should tell your insurer everything, but I wouldn’t dream (and never have) of telling mine if I was sorning the car for a bit. 

 

Personally I’d look at simply reducing the mileage limit to the minimum they offer to reduce the cost, and then go with that. Or just carry on using it, it’s just a car after all and a modern one at that, it’ll be fine. How much was the policy overall, and are you paying monthly?

Yeah i agree you shouldn't have to say if your SORNing as the risk is being reduced, but the cover should be reduced also to reflect this however i don't think Admiral will do that as i said previously i would just weigh up options to decide from there what to do.

 

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I know it perhaps seems counter productive not insuring a car that your not using on the road, but what if it gets stolen, what if it gets damaged and written off (somehow), what if it catches fire, i understand if its a shed, but not something thats £4k or so, keep it insured, for the added no claims you will get it probably offsets and monies back.

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I SORN my Porsche and bikes every winter, never effected my insurance which I keep rolling for the 12 month period and then re-tax them in the spring when the weather improves.

 

Never heard of an insurance company cancelling your policyif you SORN a vehicle.

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Hey all, 

 

Won't be able to upload a copy of Ts and Cs till I get home tonight. 

 

I haven't reached out to anyone who offers laid up insurance but overwhelming opinion is that its a car to enjoy and if I've paid so much already, why would I leave it on the driveway covered up? 

 

I'm young and I need to build up the NCB as well so enough of me worrying. I should enjoy the car while I still can! 

 

It's interesting to work out if insurance companies do check the tax status of a car. 

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If (only if!) Admiral do cancel policies when SORN (and knowing Admiral I wouldn’t be surprised to find out this was the case despite their T&C’s) then the first thing they’ll do in the event of a claim is spend the 30seconds it takes to check tax as a matter of course.

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To be honest Umster the first thing you should do is call them back and seek clarification, even ask to speak to a supervisor. I’ve been insured with them previously using multi car policies and have never come across this, albeit I didn’t inform them I was SORNing any of the vehicles

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It isn't less risk though, not to insurance underwriters. Less risk of crashing, granted, but the algorithms they use will state there's a greater risk of theft. More so if it's parked up on a driveway outside the registered address - i.e. where thieves will know where the car is located and the house that contain the keys.

 

Similar rationale for being parked in a garage, except with the additional risk of the thieves having the privacy to not be disturbed by passers by if they're in a garage.

 

[underwriter logic; everything is higher risk!]

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14 hours ago, ilogikal1 said:

It isn't less risk though, not to insurance underwriters. Less risk of crashing, granted, but the algorithms they use will state there's a greater risk of theft. More so if it's parked up on a driveway outside the registered address - i.e. where thieves will know where the car is located and the house that contain the keys.

 

Similar rationale for being parked in a garage, except with the additional risk of the thieves having the privacy to not be disturbed by passers by if they're in a garage.

 

[underwriter logic; everything is higher risk!]

While you are right with some companies this is not always the case, i work for an insurer, we offer laid up cover, the price of laid up insurance is significantly cheaper than fully comp cover.  Different Underwriters will look at this differently its dependant on the company and their appetite.  I work for a Rural insurer, so its very common for our customers to have laid up vehicles, machinery and vintage vehicles, and we cover accordingly so although you are probably right for a large number of companies they dont all look at things that way.  

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On 31/10/2018 at 09:56, CAL-85 said:

While you are right with some companies this is not always the case, i work for an insurer, we offer laid up cover, the price of laid up insurance is significantly cheaper than fully comp cover.  Different Underwriters will look at this differently its dependant on the company and their appetite.  I work for a Rural insurer, so its very common for our customers to have laid up vehicles, machinery and vintage vehicles, and we cover accordingly so although you are probably right for a large number of companies they dont all look at things that way.  

So out of interest, what does laid up cover insure against, are the policies yearly or 6 monthly?

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17 hours ago, Jetpilot said:

So out of interest, what does laid up cover insure against, are the policies yearly or 6 monthly?

Fire and theft, and yes normally annual as far as i am aware.  But thats not to say you cant then amend the cover back to Comp part way through the year.

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