Insuring a car for a test drive

Fortunately, in most cases test drive insurance is very fast and easy to arrange. Making sure that you are insured for driving a car that you are thinking of buying is absolutely essential if you are to protect your driving licence and your finances. If you are buying from a dealership they may well have a policy that covers their cars for any driver; then again they may not and it is up to you to ensure that if you do take a car for a spin to check it out, you are fully insured to do so because if you were caught driving whilst uninsured the consequences could be catastrophic, and ignorance of the offence is no defence in this case.

Won't my existing insurance cover it?

Perhaps you already have a policy on another car which covers you for any vehicle which does not belong to you, but you must bear in mind that this will inevitably only cover you for third party risk (in other words if you bump the car during the test drive you may have to pay for the repairs yourself!) and also, if you actually buy the vehicle, that cover will no longer be effective, because you now own it, and again you could be in serious difficulties if you are stopped by the police for any reason or involved in an accident whilst driving it home. Fortunately however you can now cover a car, either third-party or fully comprehensively, for any period of time between one day and for four weeks, within a matter of minutes with cover effective from the moment the online transaction has been completed. You would normally only need to have your driving licence details, and the registration number of the car that you wish to to drive, and even if you did not have this you could still get a quotation provided that you knew the make, year and model of the vehicle, although you would not be able to actually insure it without the registration number.

So, the procedure is quite simple, provided that you are over 18, have a reasonable driving record and have held a full licence for at least a year. Before you go to test drive the car, ask the owner for the registration number. Go online and within a matter of minutes you can arrange a fully comprehensive or third party only policy to cover you to drive the vehicle for as long as you wish, between one day and 28; in this case one day may well suffice for you to test drive the vehicle and get it home. You can then relax, spend some time on the Internet comparing prices and find the best yearly policy at an acceptable price at your leisure, instead of perhaps buying a far more expensive or less suitable policy from a sales oriented dealer.