Getting onto a deceased car insurance

[didds]

FiL died this morning. Wife is travelling up to be with her mum. Their car is her dad's. Cutting long stories short, it mnakes sense for her to go up by train, get on that car's insurance and drive that - her mum cant drive any longer anyway.

But... as yet unknown, if the insumnace policy is in her dad's name, can she just be added? Or is probate required first or whatever?

Short of doing stuff like transferring ownership to her and she buying VED and insurance straight away etc. (othyer complications here such as she has gher own car, shared with me, in her name etc).

chers

ps the things you never think to plan for ...

[PinkDalek]

Speak to the car insurance company, when you've established who they are.

As an example, this is what the Money Advice Service say:

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/e ... -insurance

Most policies terminate on the death of the main policy holder, and this will leave you uninsured.

I doubt the existing policy on your wife's own vehicle will allow her to drive without the permission of the policyholder, which is clearly impossible.

Come what may, I shouldn't worry about the probate aspect, as that only confirms what's in the Will (or Intestacy).

[GoSeigen]

FiL died this morning. Wife is travelling up to be with her mum. Their car is her dad's. Cutting long stories short, it mnakes sense for her to go up by train, get on that car's insurance and drive that - her mum cant drive any longer anyway.

But... as yet unknown, if the insumnace policy is in her dad's name, can she just be added? Or is probate required first or whatever?

Short of doing stuff like transferring ownership to her and she buying VED and insurance straight away etc. (othyer complications here such as she has gher own car, shared with me, in her name etc).

chers

ps the things you never think to plan for ...

Definitely can't "use" a dead person's insurance policy! Call the insurance company by all means, but only to inform them of his passing and ask for a refund of unused insurance. They may require documents to complete this process.

What happens to all his assets (including the car) depends on his will if he has one, or intestacy if not. If everything passes to the spouse and she is the executor for example, then she could sell or give the car to you in either her capacity as executor or beneficiary and later account for this in the estate accounts. It shouldn't take long to do this: write and sign a sale agreement, fill in and send the paperwork. Then you could insure the car in your own name immediately. If everyone is on the same page it could be done in a couple of hours.

One thing that occurs to me in the foregoing: immediately dealing with assets before probate might be "intermeddling" in the estate. You might want to check the implications of this, or hopefully someone can advise.


GS

[didds]

Tx all.

IM sure all can be sorted soonest ... turns out the MiL is a named driver (she doesn't drive any longer however, that's quite recent thing) but its still a policy in the deceased FiL name so now terminated etc.

didds

[neversay]

@didds - sorry to hear of your wife's loss. As it happens, my father passed away last week and I was mulling asking almost the same question. I called the insurance company and they cancelled the policy in my father's name but leaving it to run a few days until we made alternative arrangements. As we live nearly 2 hours away, the plan was to have my brother insure the car to use as a spare and have it on hand to take our non-driving mother to hospital appointments, etc. That has proved tricky though as the insurance quotes are coming in very high so we may have to sell the old car which leaves our mother without accessible transport. Sadly it seems like the only option.

[didds]

i think the likely option may be swapping PiL car to MiL ownership, and her insuring it in her name with wife (and me for future ease) as named drivers. Though who knows seeing as she can't physically drive now so cant truthfully be the "main driver" ?


otherwise options start to look quite expensive as "second insurances" with no NCB carry over, or sohrt term insurance for my wife ... or its starts to complicated with transferring the car to my name, and i take out insurance with my NCB but then have to change the insurance on our T4 campervan (my vehicle) which via current insurers (long story) wouldn't affect the premium we pay... or transfer the vehicle to wife and we SORN her car (here at home with me) but that is problematical in its own right in the very immediate and short term cos the T4 is in for work to be done on it this week leaving me without any vehicle at all until she gets home! *sigh*

cheers

didds

[swill453]

i think the likely option may be swapping PiL car to MiL ownership

As I'm sure you know, the V5 registration document has nothing to do with "ownership" of a vehicle, so don't worry about doing anything about that in the short term.

MiL probably already owns the car right now.

Scott.

[tjh290633]

i think the likely option may be swapping PiL car to MiL ownership, and her insuring it in her name with wife (and me for future ease) as named drivers. Though who knows seeing as she can't physically drive now so cant truthfully be the "main driver" ?

She can still be the "Keeper", though. I presume that she probably is that in any case if the car is likely to pass to her. Then you can have "Named Drivers". The Keeper does not have to be a driver, as far as I know.

TJH

[richfool]

Didds, does your wife have car insurance in her own name on her or your car? If so, MIGHT that cover her driving another car (with the owners permission, - assuming the owner of that other car is now the MIL). That might be worth checking out.

[yorkshirelad1]

Didds, does your wife have car insurance in her own name on her or your car? If so, MIGHT that cover her driving another car (with the owners permission, - assuming the owner of that other car is now the MIL). That might be worth checking out.

Re the above: insurers are quietly and slowly removing the right to drive someone else's car with their permission third party under your own policy, so check your own ploicy _very carefully_ if you are thinking of doing this

[Dod101]

Didds, does your wife have car insurance in her own name on her or your car? If so, MIGHT that cover her driving another car (with the owners permission, - assuming the owner of that other car is now the MIL). That might be worth checking out.

At best though this will be for third party only. That may be adequate though.

Dod

[Dod101]

Didds, does your wife have car insurance in her own name on her or your car? If so, MIGHT that cover her driving another car (with the owners permission, - assuming the owner of that other car is now the MIL). That might be worth checking out.

Will be for third party only at best. That may be adequate though.

Dod

[neversay]

Didds, does your wife have car insurance in her own name on her or your car? If so, MIGHT that cover her driving another car (with the owners permission, - assuming the owner of that other car is now the MIL). That might be worth checking out.

Will be for third party only at best. That may be adequate though.

Dod

Be careful though as some small print on the policy I read says on condition that the car itself is insured by someone else.

[swill453]

It's actually illegal for a car not to be insured if it's not SORNed, even if it's kept off the road. I'm sure there's some latitude given if the policyholder is recently deceased, otherwise the tabloids would have a field day with the stories.

Something to bear in mind that needs sorted though.

Scott.

[Lootman]

It's actually illegal for a car not to be insured if it's not SORNed, even if it's kept off the road.

I bet the insurance companies lobbied hard for that provision of the law. I'm equally sure that few people will comply with such a ridiculous and near-unenforceable rule.

[swill453]

It's actually illegal for a car not to be insured if it's not SORNed, even if it's kept off the road.

I bet the insurance companies lobbied hard for that provision of the law. I'm equally sure that few people will comply with such a ridiculous and near-unenforceable rule.

On the contrary, nothing could be easier than trawling the respective databases and sending automatic tickets to offenders by computer. No human intervention required.

Whether they actually do this (yet) I have no idea.

Scott.

[didds]

It's actually illegal for a car not to be insured if it's not SORNed, even if it's kept off the road.

I bet the insurance companies lobbied hard for that provision of the law. I'm equally sure that few people will comply with such a ridiculous and near-unenforceable rule.

If only. My son disposed of a car to a couple of years ago and something "went wrong" with the paperwork. We - stupidly, lesson learned - didn't take the green slip from the V5 and send it in cos the bloke said "it would all be sorted in a few days".

months later he got a 1K fine for not insuring a non SORNED vehicle. There is in effect no appeal procedure although we wrote a letter to DVLA which was clearly totally ignored. Een though they accepted the second letter saying simple he was no longer the keeper.

We learned an expensive lesson .

And the authorities clearly do follow this stuff though.

didds

[didds]

Back to my OP... all sorted ... the insurance company have proivided a fortnight of insurance including my wife.

then we'll have to decide what to do aboutv the vehicle etc.

didds

[DrFfybes]

Back to my OP... all sorted ... the insurance company have proivided a fortnight of insurance including my wife.

then we'll have to decide what to do aboutv the vehicle etc.

didds

Only just seen this, but that is what happened when my dad died. His Ins Co allowed the policy to run for 3 or so weeks (it was about to expire so they let it run until then) but I think I was only covered TPO on my own insurance. Seems sensible really, there must be many cases where people die suddenly with their cars in inconvenient locations.

We sold it very easily with the V5 and a copy of the death Cert and my ID as executor, without waiting for probate.

Paul