planky

I’ve got to do a fair few miles driving a friend’s car over the weekend and their insurance company won’t allow them to add named drivers to their policy. So I contacted my insurance company (direct line) to ask if I could add their car to my policy temporarily, however they won’t let me do this as the car in question is already insured elsewhere. Which is fair enough.

So I queried with them whether my policy still gave me third party cover on other cars (I know a number of insurance companies are stopping this and I hadn’t checked my certificate since I last renewed) and they tell me it does, but only in an emergency, which I’d never heard before and came as a bit of a surprise as I’ve driven other peoples cars on and off over the years assuming I was covered.

I checked my insurance certificate which includes “The policy holder may also driver with the owners consent a motor car not owned by the policy holder” etc.etc with absolutely no mention of this being in an emergency only. I queried this with the lady I was speaking to who again told me that cover was only in emergencies regardless of what the certificate says.

I went away and looked through my policy documents and can’t find any mention of the cover being in an emergency only, so, thinking I might have an out of date policy document, I called Direct Line back and spoke to someone else, who again confirms the “Emergency Only” thing but tells me that this isn’t actually mentioned anywhere in writing (i.e. the insurance certificate, schedule or policy document) but that it’s what they’re told to tell people that ask about it.

Does anyone know what the actual situation is with this? I’m of the opinion that if this isn’t included anywhere in writing then, regardless of what they’re telling me over the phone, I’m still covered third party only on other cars whether it’s an emergency or not.