Laid up car insurance

If you have a vehicle you are no longer driving, whether it is for a short period or permanently, the car must be declared to the DVLA as SORN. A car registered as SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) is not allowed to be driven on public roads by law and new changes brought forward mean, these cars need to be insured too. That's where laid up car insurance comes into play.

Who is it for

This is for anyone who is not driving a car they own for whatever reason; sometimes it's because the car becomes too expensive to run, ill health or travelling for a long period of time where paying for the day to day running of a car is not financially viable. It could be a student who chooses not to take their car with them to University, a parent who has bought a second car that is cheaper to run or a car owner who has suddenly fallen ill and cannot drive safely.

Some insurance advisers will tell you to cancel your current policy altogether whilst others will advise you to reduce it to the minimum level of cover available which is Fire and Theft, but this is also known as lay up insurance. If you are downgrading your insurance with your current provider, this is better as you will still build up your no claims bonus with them, but if you cancel and go with another insurance company remember that you may forfeit your no claims bonus for the year.

The conditions

Most insurers who provide laid up insurance will also state clearly in the policy that in order for the cover to be valid, the car must remain in a locked garage at all times. So if you take it out and leave it on a driveway or a public road and something was to happen, the insurance may not cover this and you would be held liable for everything.

The chances of a car that is laid up being stolen or vandalised are very slim as in most cases the car will be stored securely in a garage but in the unlikely event that it does happen, you would need to notify the police and contact your insurer to inform them about the incident. They might send someone round to see how that unfortunate thing happened in the first place, that is, how someone was able to steal/damage the vehicle, so check the policy wording carefully to make sure you are keeping the vehicle as secure as the policy states. For example some places require strict secure storage eg a big padlock on the garage door may not be enough to qualify as secure.

No matter how much precaution you take, sometimes things are just out of your control. If your garage catches fire for some reason and that damages your car, you'll want to know that you've got your vehicle covered for such misfortune rather than regretting you didn't purchase laid up car insurance just to save you some cash or because you thought nothing bad would happen whilst your precious car is garaged.