The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

A constant problem when customers take out a lease agreement is insurance. You have to cover your car with fully comprehensive insurance. If other drivers will drive the vehicle they must also be covered by the policy and if the vehicle is used for business this must be covered also. The problem is where to go. I still find it amazing that I have been providing lease cars to businesses and consumers for over 25 years and yet some insurers still don’t understand the concept of driving a car that you don’t own.

Some of the comments are ridiculous from people who have been in the insurance industry for a long time so let me clarify the point and give you somewhere to arrange the insurance.

First of all when you insure a vehicle that isn’t yours but you are responsible for the vehicle whilst on a lease you can take out a standard fully comprehensive policy as long as the insurance company knows you don’t own the vehicle.

If you have an accident it will be dealt with in exactly the same fashion as if you owned the car unless the car is a total write off. In those circumstances the insurance company will deal direct with the owner, the leasing company, and they will receive the payout, it won’t come to you first for you to forward to them.

You will be responsible for any shortfall between what the insurer pays out and the leasing company’s settlement cost, hence the reason for GAP insurance to cover this difference, but I’ve covered this previously so won’t go into details now.

So who provides this insurance? This is where it becomes confusing because I have had clients that have taken out policies with Direct Line but even as recent as last week a client was told by them that they didn’t insure cars where you were not the owner, then changed their minds but increased the premium followed by a complete back down with agreement to charge the original premium. Yes you can negotiate with insurance companies.

Brokers are useful but you will probably pay more (not always – so worth a call). So I wrote to Confused.com to ask if applicants could arrange insurance through them on a lease car and this was their very helpful response:

In order to start comparing car insurance quotations, please visit www.confused.com and simply click on ‘Get a Quote‘ on our homepage. You will then be asked to fill in some information about yourself and the car that you are looking to insure. Please ensure you answer all requested fields in order to receive an accurate and competitive quotation.

If you are experiencing problems with our website or difficulty entering information, please email us with details of your query and we will be happy to assist you.

When asked ‘whose name is on the registration document?’ and ‘who owns the car?’ please enter ‘Private Leased‘ if the lease company owns the vehicle.

If you would like to accept a quote, select ‘More’ next to the quote you are interested in, then click on ‘Buy Online’ to link through to the provider’s website. Make sure you check the information entered to confirm everything is correct, and read through the insurance provider’s Terms and Conditions, before entering your payment details to purchase the policy.

So there you have it, you can now happily go onto Confused and get your quotes. Have you had problems with insurance on your lease car or payout following an accident? Then please let me know. By Graham Hill