The Lemon Fool

I am the registered keeper and main driver of our current car (1). We are about to buy a second car (2); at which point my wife will then be the main driver of car 1 and I will be the main driver of new car 2.

Am I obliged to change the registered keeper of car 1 from my name to hers?

Hypster wrote:Am I obliged to change the registered keeper of car 1 from my name to hers?

That would be something you need to ask your insurers. Seems there's no legal position one way or the other, it's up to each insurer to say in their T&Cs...

Most insurance companies insist that the person who they insure is the primary user of the vehicle and can specify that the person is the registered keeper. It is up to them who they will or will not insure.

https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q743.htm

No.

I am the RK of our car and my wife is the main user, and has been for a number of years. When all said and done, the authorities are only bothered about having a person and an address to whom they can send fines etc. As far as the ins. co. is concerned, they want to know because of the risk factor, eg, and yes I know it doesn't count now, but Mrs T got done for speeding a few years ago, whereas I have (somehow) managed to retain a perfectly clean license. I declared her conviction, and had to pay the penalty in terms of increased premium.

Regards,

ten0rman

ten0rman wrote:I am the RK of our car and my wife is the main user, and has been for a number of years. When all said and done, the authorities are only bothered about having a person and an address to whom they can send fines etc.

Yes, a blind person can be the RK of a vehicle. It has nothing to do with who is driving or using the vehicle. You don't need a driving license to buy, own or keep a car.

Actually, on reflection, I wonder if I have simplified it a bit too much. So treat this as an addition to my earlier post.

When my youngest son was learning to drive say 8 years ago, I bought an el cheapo car. It was, initially registered in my name, however the ins.co. wouldn't insure it for my son to be the main driver. My argument was that I wanted to be able to take over and drive the car if he got into a panic type situation. I had to re-register it in his name and insure him as main user with me as a named driver.

Now, as I said, I am the RK for our car and my wife is the main user. I have not had any problems at all with any ins.co in this situation.

I'm now wondering if it's a case of being spouses is treated differently than father and son.

May I point out before anyone else does, there was absolutely no intention of "fronting". As far as I was concerned it was purely for emergency usage as described above.

Other than that, my earlier comments re DVLA etc still stand.

Regards,

ten0rman

Thanks for all the replies!

ten0rman wrote:When my youngest son was learning to drive say 8 years ago, I bought an el cheapo car. It was, initially registered in my name, however the ins.co. wouldn't insure it for my son to be the main driver. My argument was that I wanted to be able to take over and drive the car if he got into a panic type situation. I had to re-register it in his name and insure him as main user with me as a named driver. ...

I'm now wondering if it's a case of being spouses is treated differently than father and son.

Up to recently, I was registered keeper and owner of the car bought for my son's use. He was the policyholder and named as the main driver. I was included as an additional driver.

The Car Insurance Statement of Fact includes "The registered keeper and vehicle owner is the policyholder or spouse, civil partner, common law partner, parent or guardian of the policyholder" [my bold].

So, in so far as our insurers were concerned, a spouse would have been treated the same as issue.

PinkDalek wrote:The Car Insurance Statement of Fact includes "The registered keeper and vehicle owner is the policyholder or spouse, civil partner, common law partner, parent or guardian of the policyholder" [my bold].

Is your insurance company thereby implying that a registered keeper must have some kind of verifiable relationship to the policyholder and driver?

If so, I was not aware that was necessary. I was aware that an insured must have an "insurable interest" in the subject of the insurance, but not that it was so tightly defined.

Maybe a no would have meant we weren’t offered cover but it was of no concern to us. They were one of the most competitive for a newly qualified driver and the conditions seemed reasonable enough to me, in a Father/Son relationship.

Hypster wrote:I am the registered keeper and main driver of our current car (1). We are about to buy a second car (2); at which point my wife will then be the main driver of car 1 and I will be the main driver of new car 2.

Am I obliged to change the registered keeper of car 1 from my name to hers?

We had a similar situation three years ago. I called the insurance company and explained that vehicle #1 which was in my name was actually going to be driven by Mrs VRD and vehicle #2, which had been registered in her name, was going to be driven by me, with each of us as a second named driver on the other's policy.

Both insurance companies said "no problem", which saved me the trouble of "selling" her my car and "buying" hers. As others have mentioned, they seem to treat spouses as interchangeable!

VRD

vrdiver wrote:

Hypster wrote:Both insurance companies said "no problem", which saved me the trouble of "selling" her my car and "buying" hers.

Well it wouldn't be selling or buying at all. As the first line on the front of the V5 states, in capital letters "THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT PROOF OF OWNERSHIP".

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

vrdiver wrote:

Hypster wrote:Both insurance companies said "no problem", which saved me the trouble of "selling" her my car and "buying" hers.

Well it wouldn't be selling or buying at all. As the first line on the front of the V5 states, in capital letters "THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT PROOF OF OWNERSHIP".

Scott.

As Scott rightly points out, RK does not equal owner.

There are three "states" which are relevant to a car in this issue - Ownership, Registration, and Main Driving - they do not have to all pertain to the same person. When it's a;; one person, insurance is simple. Different combinations of 'state' and 'person' get problematic.

Confusingly, however, change of RK is often referred to in the car trade as change of owner, and having more changes affects the resale price - even if it's between family members!

chas49 wrote:There are three "states" which are relevant to a car in this issue - Ownership, Registration, and Main Driving - they do not have to all pertain to the same person.

Four: Ownership, Registration, Policy Holder and Main Driver.


I took out our policy because of 9 years' NCB, but DW is the main driver. I bet there are cases where all four are different; wonder how many insurers would mind that?

GS

GoSeigen wrote:

chas49 wrote:There are three "states" which are relevant to a car in this issue - Ownership, Registration, and Main Driving - they do not have to all pertain to the same person.

Four: Ownership, Registration, Policy Holder and Main Driver.


I took out our policy because of 9 years' NCB, but DW is the main driver. I bet there are cases where all four are different; wonder how many insurers would mind that?

GS

Correct - i missed that one (only the most important one for this topic!!!)

GoSeigen wrote:

chas49 wrote:There are three "states" which are relevant to a car in this issue - Ownership, Registration, and Main Driving - they do not have to all pertain to the same person.

Four: Ownership, Registration, Policy Holder and Main Driver.

I took out our policy because of 9 years' NCB, but DW is the main driver. I bet there are cases where all four are different; wonder how many insurers would mind that?

I mentioned earlier that, in order to take out any insurance policy, the policyholder must have what is known as an "insurable interest" in the item being insured. So for instance you cannot take out insurance on my house or my life. Only on your own house or life.

So in respect of vehicles I doubt that any insurer would sell you cover for a vehicle that you were unconnected to. It would almost be more akin to gambling than insurance.

Suppose A buys a vehicle, B is the keeper of it and the idea is that C will drive it. I do not believe that C can take out a policy on that vehicle, nor any D who in your example presumably has no role other than carrying insurance. A practical example would be someone who buys and keeps a vehicle that is intended to be driven by a chauffeur. I'd assume that the latter would need some kind of commercial insurance to cover liability to third parties driving any vehicle, whilst the vehicle itself would still need its own insurance to be taken out by A or B - the two parties who would lose if the vehicle were damaged i.e. suffer from a loss in the value of their insurable interest.

My experience of this is from a few years ago when my partner and I moved from having two cars to one. Previously each of us 'owned' a car (the money had come from a joint account) and each of us had been the registered keeper and had a car insured.

When we got rid of one we thought it might be a temporary situation, albeit one that might go on for a few years.

From speaking to the insurance broker we established that the non-claims bonus remained valid for two years if a car was not actually applied to a car.

So for a few years we swapped who insured the car, although I remained the main driver each time (I like being driven, but apparently I twitch in a nervous and off-putting way).

Anyway, it was whilst swapping the policies we found that the insurers didn't care who was the registered keeper, but if the insured was not the registered keeper it did increase the insurance premium. So each time the insurance switched we just changed the registered keeper as well (we had no intention of selling the car so the increase in the number of keepers made no difference).

Purely out of curiosity, is there any reason [1] why you wouldn't have the RK as the main driver/insured?

[1] the one reason I can think of the now rather tedious loss of VED scenario when flipping drivers, though it can be reasonably easily overcome with a sorn on the last day of month X, and registering and VED payment on day 1 of month X+1 - notwithstanding availabilities etc.
DAK if this flip in this manner can be done at 2350 and 0010 (for example) given they are actually two differing days spanning a month end and start?



didds

didds wrote:Purely out of curiosity, is there any reason [1] why you wouldn't have the RK as the main driver/insured?

Yes, because someone other than the RK is the main driver of the car.


GS

GoSeigen wrote:

didds wrote:Purely out of curiosity, is there any reason [1] why you wouldn't have the RK as the main driver/insured?

Yes, because someone other than the RK is the main driver of the car.


GS

I'm not sure I understood that answer.

I'll put it another way - why wouldn't the main driver be the RK ? what would be the advantage? The only ones I can think of apart from the VED situation on ownership flip would be nefarious reasons somewhat approaching B movie plot line status. Or front loading (ie another nefarious reason).

didds

didds wrote: why wouldn't the main driver be the RK ? what would be the advantage? The only ones I can think of apart from the VED situation on ownership flip would be nefarious reasons somewhat approaching B movie plot line status. Or front loading (ie another nefarious reason).

I already gave an example. A blind person wants to be driven around by a friend or family member, or maybe pay for a chauffeur. The blind person would buy the vehicle and be the RK. But obviously could not drive.

Or maybe an old person who doesn't want to drive or someone who is banned from driving for whatever reason.