Compare Multi Car Insurance, You Could Save up to £400.

Buying car insurance can be likened to buying milk. When you discover, immediately after brewing the kettle, that there’s just a drop left in the bottle, the only thing for it is to dash to the corner shop and grab a small carton to get you through breakfast. It’s not the cheapest way of buying milk, admittedly, but in your hour of need, it will do just fine.You wouldn’t buy all your groceries from the local shop of course; it’s too expensive for that and the products are too small to effectively satisfy the demands of a whole family. That’s what the supermarket was designed for, with its family-sized tubs of washing powder and eight-pint milk cartons.

 

So how does all this relate to car insurance? Well, it’s simple really. In this day and age, the majority of households have two or more cars. Both partners will usually have a car for getting to work or taking the children to school in, while the children themselves, upon reaching 17, will doubtlessly also be clamoring for the freedom that comes with a set of wheels.

 

By the time you’ve factored in a dedicated work vehicle and one for an older relative who may also be staying in your household, that’s an awful lot of cars needing taxed, MOT’d and insured. The logistics of trying to keep on top of multiple policies, often made through different insurers and with different renewal dates, can be a nightmare. Although the act of paying for car insurance might never be a pleasurable one, it can be a painless one at least. How? By going to the supermarket and grabbing that eight-pint carton of milk, or as it’s known in the insurance world, by purchasing a multi-car policy.

Multi Car insurance – that’s got to be complicated, right? Most things with ‘multi’ in their name tend to be unfathomably complex – multiple personality disorders; multiple equilibria; dating multiple partners; they’re all a complete logistical nightmare. Surely taking out multi car insurance is an endless procession of form-filling, document-scanning, countersigning and hair-tearing? In actual fact, multi car insurance policies are less painful than you might think. Not quite as enjoyable as a fortnight in the Bahamas perhaps, but certainly less onerous than a trip to the dentist. The truth is that applying for a multi car insurance policy doesn’t take much longer than applying for a single-car one. Once you’ve got your documents to hand, the online application process is swift and trouble-free. There’ll probably be a few additional questions to answer (which cars each family member will be driving for example), but once the information’s been entered, the results are returned in seconds.

 

As with all vehicle insurance however, there are a number of factors to bear in mind when applying for multi car insurance cover. Different insurers may have different rules regarding how many cars can be insured under one policy, as well as other details that may warrant consideration when seeking a quotation. Generally speaking however, it’s possible to insure up to five cars under one policy, provided they are registered to the same address. Quite where you’re expected to park five cars on a single property is another matter; perhaps the money you’ll save on taking out a multi policy could be put towards the construction of a quintuple-car garage.Although a multi car insurance policies can cover every vehicle in your household, that doesn’t mean it necessarily covers every householder to drive every car. Pleading ignorance if one of the children gets caught taking your work vehicle for a spin won’t cut it if they haven’t been named to drive that vehicle.

 

If family members are likely to use all the vehicles in your household from time to time, by all means get them covered across the board. In many cases however, it will make more sense to cover them for their primary vehicle only. There’s no point in engaging in some sort of vehicle-swapping relay with family members if it comes at the cost of an extra £200 being slapped on your policy.Losing your no-claims bonus on account of your own reckless driving would be hard enough to take, but how would you feel if you were penalised on account of a partner’s careless manoeuvre? Thankfully, most multi-car policies don’t work that way, but it’s worth checking out nonetheless, to avoid strained marital relations if nothing else. Of course, even cars that are permanently driven as if there were an instructor taking notes in the passenger seat won’t last forever.

 

It’s worth checking what your insurer’s rules are on changing vehicles when the time comes for an upgrade.Linking the renewal dates for all the vehicles that share a multi-car policy makes sense from an organisational perspective, but possibly not from a financial one. If you can’t stand the thought of being hit with renewal fees for all your vehicles at once, see if your insurer will allow for staggered payments instead – most will, but cumulatively you may end up paying more. Incidentally, what constitutes a ‘household’, for insurance purposes? In 21st-century Great Britain, the traditional nuclear family, while still common, is hardly as ubiquitous as it once was.Thanks to a multitude of flat-sharing, common-law living and civil partnering arrangements, it’s hard to define a typical household these days.

 

Most insurers seem to apply common sense in such situations; you’ll be relieved to hear that an authenticated family tree and DNA samples will not be required to confirm the veracity of your household. Cars don’t all have to be registered with the same owner, so provided you’re reasonable and don’t take liberties when filling in your details, there shouldn’t be any problems. By all means put your progeny on the same policy if they live with you, though incorporating your mother-in-law who comes to visit twice a year may be chancing your luck.

Multi-car insurance has its merits, but is it the right policy for you? Whether or not you plump for multi-car cover will – like most of life’s buying decisions – ultimately come down to money: will you save money by taking out a multi-car policy? If the answer to that is an unequivocal ‘Yes’, then what are you waiting for? Switch over to multi-car as soon as possible and start saving money. For some motorists, however, multi-car cover may not work out cheaper – and in some instances could end up costing more. If you live in a single-car, single-occupancy household, for example, multi-car cover will not be the best policy for you. Moreover, even if there are multiple drivers in your household, multi-car may not always work out cheapest. For example, taking out a single policy that entitles all of your family to drive all of your vehicles could prove to be expensive if there are young drivers to be included on the policy.

 

For the most part, however, multi-car insurance should save the average household money. Many families nowadays have two or more cars; if so, then by merging your various car insurance policies into one, you could save money. To find out if you could save money with multi-car insurance, why not request an online quotation? By comparing the prices of a range of insurers, you’ll soon find out what sort of savings you’ll make by switching to a multi-car policy. Because you’ll be paying one insurer to cover all of your vehicles, they will reward you with a discount in return for your business. This should prove to be good news for all of the drivers in your household – provided you choose to tell them about the saving you’ve made, of course, and don’t just pocket the difference.

 

Before taking out a multi-car insurance policy, check that all of the vehicles and drivers in your household are eligible. Some insurers will not cover a work vehicle on a domestic policy; others may have rules on whether or not all vehicles have to be registered to the same address. If you have a child who is away at university, some insurers will allow you to include their vehicle on your multi-car policy – even though they’ve flown the nest. When it comes to buying multi-car cover, shop around, do the math, read the small print and you could soon be saving money on your motor insurance.