3rd party insurance (3rd party fire and theft)
To be allowed on the road the minimum insurance you must have is 3rd party insurance for the period of time you are driving – the minimum period is often a day, this type of cover basically means that if you are the cause of an accident the insurance company will pay for the damages incurred by any 3rd party but not by you.
For example, if you were to have 3rd party insurance and cause an accident, for example, you crash into me writing off both cars I would be fully compensated by your insurance company, a new car and any injuries plus any other damage to anyone else involved would be covered but you would not be entitled to any expenses you incurred. If you wanted to get your car back on the road then you would need to pay for any repairs and in addition to this you would not have any medical or legal cover, 3rd party insurance is really the absolute minimum.
You can get a rough idea of the price you would be paying for third party insurance as opposed to the fully comprehensive cover using the strategy outlined in the quick car insurance quote post, have a look and get a better understanding of the potential savings.
Because of the huge reduction in potential expense to the insurance company third party insurance is often a much cheaper option than taking out fully comprehensive insurance, however, as you have already seen, there are some risks involved.
The risks can be negated a little by adding fire and theft cover to a third party policy, this is quite common as the mentality of many people who take out third party insurance is that they are not going to cause an accident so they do not require the added piece of mind of cover for themselves (as by nature of everyone having insurance if someone else cause the accident even a driver with only 3rd party insurance would have their costs covered on the basis that they would be the third party of the person who cause the accident). However, while people can be confident in their ability to not have an accident they are not so confident that their vehicle will not be damaged by theft or fire, this is why third party, fire and theft is such a popular policy option.
If, as a young driver, you are considering third party insurance either with or without the addition of fire and theft you need to seriously think about what could happen if you cause an accident. Could you really afford to replace your vehicle if you had an accident or would you be risking leaving yourself unable to get about? If you are driving someone else vehicle would they be happy in the knowledge that a young driver (the highest risk group) might, if they cause an accident, not be able to replace the vehicle.
Like all things car insurance review everything and make an informed decision yourself, this information might not be accurate by the time you read it, take care and perform due diligence. Some questions to consider:
- How much will you save by taking the 3rd party only insurance<
- How much is the vehicle worth
- Who owns the vehicle
- Would you consider adding the fire and theft options if you did go with the third party cover
- It is possible that insurance comanies might create “package” branded as student car insurance and actually just sell 3rd party cover, make sure, as a student, you are not lured in by a bribe such as a free TV.
Something else to consider is that third party insurance is a cheap way of starting to build a no claims discount, if you plan to drive very infrequently it might be an option to take out the third party insurance but draw your insurance companies attention to the fact you will only be driving 1k miles per year rather than the average 10k.
