Third Party Car Insurance - What's Covered And What's Not

Third party car insurance offers you protection for any claim made against you, your driver (if somebody else was driving) or the person responsible for your car. You must by law (the Road Traffic Act) be covered by a certain level of cover. All policies in the UK giving 'third party cover' or more, will provide greater protection than the law requires. Whether you just have 'third party only'; 'third party fire and theft' or 'comprehensive' you will have this section.

If you are to blame for causing an accident your insurance company will pay all damages that you must pay by law to those people (the third party) that you have injured or killed, or whose vehicle you have damaged etc. This includes any legal costs incurred by either the victim's or your own solicitors.

The subject of third party cover becomes very confusing if you are a passenger in your own vehicle and it is being driven by another person. Provided that the other person is allowed to drive it, then it is the driver who is insured by this section and not you. Your policy wording will list those who are covered to drive the vehicle, e.g., named drivers, passengers, employer etc. Thus if you, as the passenger, were to be injured owing to the bad driving of the person driving your car, you have the legal right to claim compensation from that person. So your policy here would protect the driver, not you. You would end up with the money. Remember though that this is a two edged sword. In the event that the driver were killed or injured whilst driving on your policy then there would be no liability on your insurance company.

Unfortunately, no matter who was driving, you cannot claim for accident damage to your vehicle on your third party policy.

If a thief takes your car and causes an accident (an all too common happening in this day and age!) this section of the policy will protect you, as owner of the car, against any claim for damage or injury caused by the thief. This seems so unfair - after all it was the thief who had the accident, yet it's our no-claims bonus that will be lost. Remember, we are dealing with the law. The intention is to make sure that we can compensate innocent victims who suffer damage to their property or physical injury caused by a stolen car. Which car thief has the money to pay for that? So it is possible, in actuality, for the victim to claim against your policy. Cases where injury or damage are caused by someone driving a stolen car can be amazingly complex.

Article Source: http://www.myaddirectory.com

This article was penned by Terry Cod. He has many years of experience working as a claims adjuster with a number of UK insurance companies. His website www.instant-online-insurance.co.uk offers cheap online motor insurance with online quotes and secure online payment.

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