If you’ve been looking into car insurance policies lately and trying to figure out what kind of coverage you need for the best protection, then you might have found yourself considering the benefits of multi-car insurance. Multi-car insurance is one of the most common insurance options in the UK today, and it offers protection for up to five cars on the same policy.
Most of the time, a multi-car insurance will offer the same level of protection as you would expect for a single car. Obviously, if you’re only driving one car, and you don’t need to bring anyone else onto your policy, then you won’t benefit from a multi-car insurance strategy. However, if you use these policies carefully, it is possible to discount the amount you pay on insurance each month.
Why Bother with Multi-Car Insurance?
As mentioned above, a multi-car insurance policy is a protection service that covers multiple cars within the same policy. The only difference between this and a standard insurance policy is the number of cars protected by insurance. One policy provides all the paperwork needed for every car, and the renewal dates are the same for each car in the system. Some insurance providers will even offer you discounts and benefits when you add extra cars to your policy.
Today, the UK is packed full of homes that have more than a single driver within them, and many of those people have their own car. As other expenses continue to drive down the amount of money we have to spend each month, a multi-car insurance policy could be a good way to reduce living expenses for the average family. Most of the time, multi-car insurance policies are best for:
- Couples with a car each
- People with more than one car
- Families with multiple drivers
The discounts that are offered through multi-car insurance policies can make it easier to enjoy the benefits of multiple vehicles within a single household.
How Multi-Car Policies Work
So, how do these policies work?
The simple answer is that it offers protection to every car within the same policy. If the cars you’re protecting are registered for the same address, most providers will allow you to choose different excess levels for each vehicle on the policy, and you can even select different types of insurance too.
Like standard car insurance policies, multi-car coverage plans generally last for twelve months at a time, but you may be able to access short-term coverage too. For instance, if you have a car requiring insurance straight away in June, and another that needs insurance in September, you’ll receive insurance for the first car, but the policy will renew in September when each vehicle is covered by the same policy.
The cars covered in a multi-car insurance policy must only be used for private reasons – in other words, you can use them as an Uber or taxi car. Additionally, you will only be able to drive all the cars insured in the policy if you are also registered as a named driver for each vehicle. Importantly, you will not be able to add work vehicles or vans to your multi-car insurance.
What to Remember When Getting Multi-Car Insurance
When you’re hunting for a deal with your multi-car insurance quote, the first thing you should do is compare the cost of your insurance with the quotes you get to insure each of the vehicles that you want to cover separately. Although most of the time, multi-car insurance is cheaper, you may also be able to find individual policies that are better valued for your money. For instance, it’s worth considering the type of car that you will be insuring.
If one of the cars that you want coverage for is a very expensive sports car, and the other is in a lower insurance band, then you might find that it’s much cheaper to buy separate policies from specialist insurers. Expensive cars can bring up the price of insurance for everyone in a multi-car policy, so it’s important to keep that in mind. Additionally, to make sure that you don’t have to pay to insure the same car twice, it’s worth finding out whether you can add new cars to the plan when their cover expires elsewhere.
Finally, make sure that the provider offering your multi-car insurance also allows you to arrange cover for the policy for new vehicles if anyone in your policy changes to a new vehicle within the same term. Most insurers are happy with this, though the car you buy will affect your insurance rates.
