UK Short Term Car Insurance Situations

Short term car insurance is car insurance that can be bought quickly and stays in effect only for a brief period. This can range from days to weeks to months. It can be useful in a variety of situations. Some hypothetical examples of these situations are as follows.

Situation 1


Your car is in the shop and won’t be ready until Monday. There is a friend who is willing to lend you his car but is concerned about the risk if you were to get into an accident. You tell him not to worry because you have the solution. You look temporary car insurance up on the internet, tell your friend about it, he gives the go ahead and gives you the make and model of the car over the phone, and you purchase it with a credit card online. This is insures you to drive his car without him having to add you to the policy.

Situation 2

You have just found a car in the newspaper being sold by an individual. The owner tells you that he still has insurance on the car and that the plates are still on. You go to look at the car and decide you’d like to buy it. You tell the owner you’ll be right back, go to the café on the corner, boot up your laptop computer, and buy temporary car insurance for a week on temporary insurance website. You come back, pay the man for the vehicle, and drive the car away. He’s not concerned about the fact that he has insurance on the vehicle because if you were to get into an accident while driving the car away to register it and so forth, your temporary insurance rather than his would be responsible. He wouldn’t have to go through the lengthy process of adding you to his insurance policy on the vehicle in order for you to pay him and drive away. You then register the vehicle and get long term insurance within a few days. You send the plates back to the owner.

Situation 3

You have just bought a car with the intention of fixing it up a bit and reselling it. You estimate it will take from between a month and a month and a half to repair with all the other things you have to do. You buy temporary auto insurance on a month to month rolling basis for the car. This allows you to cancel it within the time frame of any month. The repair ends up taking a little over a month. You only pay the two monthly premiums for those months. You resell the vehicle shortly afterward. You don’t owe any more premiums and you profit from the resale of the car.

Situation 4

A friend is going to be in your town to attend a wedding. It is being held at a resort off in the countryside far from the suburban area where you live. He asks you if he can borrow your car. You tell him that yes, he can. He buys temporary car insurance for 3 days. You lend him your car, he attends the wedding, gets fairly drunk, and on the way to a nearby hotel he has rented gets into an accident. He’s terribly apologetic on the phone. His temporary insurance policy kicks in and he has the car brought into a local shop and repaired. He drives it back late the next day in good condition. You don’t owe anything, your insurance was not affected, and everything ends up fine.

Consider temporary car insurance. It is excellent for these and other types of instances. It offers more freedom and convenience than ordinary long term policies in various situations that can come up in the general process of vehicle ownership, purchase, and usage.