Oh and you've rang my insurer with my details to know that's the case?

It is still insured, i've rang my insurer twice to double check, if I've driven to a location parked up etc it's still under my care meaning it's covered 3rd party as it would be if I was driving, with my insurer anyway!

I wish people would get their facts right before making uninformed and incorrect posts!

if the council or vosa are going around doing random checks with reg number and pulling non insured parked cars off the road and your reg number does bring up an insurance policy, it will get taken its fact

dave said:

if the council or vosa are going around doing random checks with reg number and pulling non insured parked cars off the road and your reg number does bring up an insurance policy, it will get taken its fact

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i'm not disputing that.

i'm saying in the meantime i'm fully legal to drive it, same as i'm insured when it's parked up.

i've been onto the DVLA, their first port of call when they think i car is not insured is a wanring letter to get it insured, you get so long, if you don't insure it within a set period the least you can expect is a fine and worst case scenario they'll take the car. according to them they wont just take a car.

x Alex x said:

I wish people would get their facts right before making uninformed and incorrect posts!

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So do I.

The cover provided on some policies to drive a car you do not own is called "drive other cars" or DOC. It is not called DOC and park.


The law does not rely upon the opinion of telephone clerks at an insurance co. It relies on case law. Before accusing others of posting inaccurate information you might like to look at these cases.

Pinner v Everett
Jones v Prothero
R V McDonagh

All of which go into considerable detail about exactly what does, or does not, constitute "driving" for legal purposes.


It is clear from those cases and others that, "driving" a car with no other insurance, is legal PROVIDED your own insurers allow it. Some insurers require that the car has other insurance to avoid the obvious problem of what happens when a driver using DOC stops "driving".

When you leave a car you are driving on DOC ( and has no other cover ) to fill it with petrol or do something else which is an essential part of the journey you are still considered to be driving. So it is covered.

When the car is parked at the end of the journey it is not covered as you are no longer "driving".

Which is what you already stated here:

https://www.fiatforum.com/insurance/277107-driving-other-cars.html?p=2819730



Alex said he won't pay the fine if he gets caught, so it will be interesting to see what happens when/if he goes to court

johnw said:

So do I.

The cover provided on some policies to drive a car you do not own is called "drive other cars" or DOC. It is not called DOC and park.

etc etc

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I asked for DOC to be taken off my renewal to reduce the premiums - it only allowed me to DOC with third party insurance anyway, and I believe this is all that insurers offer - third party driving of another car with owner's consent.
But won't there also be conditions in the nano print along the lines of this not being your vehicle or not being your main vehicle, you can drive this on a temporary basis etc etc etc.
I was always under the impression that each car had to have its own insurance cover anyway, so even if you are out and about, if the car isn't insured you will still get pulled, you can tell plod that you are driving under your own third party cover but the car will still get a marker for being uninsured - so if it's noticed again you would be seen as evading insurance?

are all insurance companies the same though?

i thought others offered different levels of cover and included things other didn't.

all i know is i was assured by a bloke on the phone i'm fine to drive and would be insured parked up(i only asked after reading on here it wouldn't be, wouldn't have thought otherwise!) he checked with the supervisor who also said the same.

that's good enough for me.

to be honest, if i got a letter warning about insurance i'd just get rid of the cheapie car before i got a fine, don't need it now anyway although it's handy not having to rely on the bike or sharing the punto with the GF.

it go by what the magistrate says rather than guy who works answering phone in insurance call centre,

pooroldcodger said:

Somebody told me that there is such a thing as "laid up insurance" for this situation. Has anybody come across this? I have just enquired about adding a car (they weren't even interested in what car it was) to my insurance for 2 weeks to cover the time it will probably take to sell a car that I already own) and they quoted me £90 for 2 weeks! I would be better off taking out a normal policy and then canecelling it when I need to on that basis surely?

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GrandeGuy said:

Not if you declared it off the road with an annual mileage of Zero.
Trust me i had 3motorbikes a transit van, an Xr2 a Mk3 Golf GTI, a Mk2 polo and a skyline, laid up at my house at one point, the cost to insure a car not used on the road is very very low because the factor that causes the cost is damage to other people and other vehicles.
As for the house insurance nothing outside your property is covered it's home and contents, i asked if one of my cars were covered inside the garage built onto my house, and i wish i never asked they started saying about it being a high risk due to the flammable liquids etc.

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I wanted to lay a car up for a while...https://www.fiatforum.com/insurance/241621-laying-up-insurance.html
Sorry MEP, I didn't see your question. iirc it wasn't much over £100 for a one year policy - but the kicker was no cancellation rights.

Whilst there doesn't seem much point insuring a car off the road that you won't be driving for a while, if it is worth anything then sod's law will kick in.

dave said:

it go by what the magistrate says rather than guy who works answering phone in insurance call centre,

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i'd go off my insurer over someone i don't know on a forum

as said, if the bloke i rang at my insurance said it's insured seconded by his supervisor, i'll take that.

x Alex x said:

as said, if the bloke i rang at my insurance said it's insured seconded by his supervisor, i'll take that.

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You may take it, but still very naive or you - do you not understand how the legal system works in this country?

So you reckon the supervisor is also the underwriter as well? How well do you know him following a single phonecall?

x Alex x said:

are all insurance companies the same though?

i thought others offered different levels of cover and included things other didn't.

all i know is i was assured by a bloke on the phone i'm fine to drive and would be insured parked up(i only asked after reading on here it wouldn't be, wouldn't have thought otherwise!) he checked with the supervisor who also said the same.

that's good enough for me.

to be honest, if i got a letter warning about insurance i'd just get rid of the cheapie car before i got a fine, don't need it now anyway although it's handy not having to rely on the bike or sharing the punto with the GF.

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Thing is, the bloke on the phone & his supervisor are just lackeys who get paid per sale. If they aren't making a sale they'll tell you anything to get rid of you so they can move on to the profitable calls. Anything like that you should always, always ask them to put it in writing - if it ain't written down, it didn't happen - at least it will give you something to work with if the crap hits the fan.

sludgeguts said:

I asked for DOC to be taken off my renewal to reduce the premiums

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Did it reduce it by much out of interest?

x Alex x said:

as said, if the bloke i rang at my insurance said it's insured seconded by his supervisor, i'll take that.

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You got it in writing Just as a backup if you did get accused of not being legal with it.

I'll ring tommorow see if I can get it in writing and scan it in. I've got the call recorded though!

@stu, no not really I'm not a lawyer, I obviously wrongly assumed if you call your insurance company to ask a question or double check something whatever they tell you is useless. obviously i couldnt possibly know him well after a phone call, but I know he worked for my insurer, anyone could be anyone on an open forum.

x Alex x said:

I'll ring tommorow see if I can get it in writing and scan it in. I've got the call recorded though!

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Ah fair enough (I assume you notified them at the beginning of the call that you were recording it ).

x Alex x said:

obviously i couldnt possibly know him well after a phone call, but I know he worked for my insurer, anyone could be anyone on an open forum.

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Yet I can tell you now johnw is a JP... I have no doubts there, even though I have never met the guy.

This is a pointless argument anyway; if you get a warning you will just get shot of the car anyway.

Most Easterly Pandas said:

Did it reduce it by much out of interest?

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A shade over £30.
Not a lot I know but being a Yorkshireman...
No, actually, I've never needed to drive anyone else's car so I asked if it could be removed - just really trying to get the premiums down. I also asked to remove european cover but seemingly that's a standard inclusion & can't be taken off
I reckon only a handfull of the millions of motorists take their cars abroad so why not make it an optional extra?
I have noticed policies nowadays seem to be a basic price then bolt on the extras - in itself, not a bad thing but the premiums don't go down to match the fact that the cover has dropped. - screen cover used to be free but most now charge £50, some even charge extra for sides/rear. I used to run a policy with nil excess but my current one has a compulsory £150 plus a voluntary option.
One of the problems with the comparison sites is that they often don't tell you that the cover is barebones. In the past I have had nil excess, free glass cover, free third party cover for other vehicles, free courtesy car, free breakdown cover etc etc. I'm now finding that much, if not all of this is extra costs - despite the basic cover costing far more than it ever did.

Insurance companies will do anything to wriggle out of paying so you need to be 100% certain of what you are doing. Whilst the man at the call centre said the car was 'in your care' if you drove it and parked up & walked away with the keys, I believe that 'technically' the car is only in your care if you are within so many yards (at a petrol station for example).
Although I wonder how this fits with cars parked outside pubs? Again, technically, the car is in your care so you could be drunk in charge even if you haven't gone anywhere near the car.
One local boozer asks drivers to leave their car keys behind the bar & they run drivers home in a minibus as a courtesy.

sludgeguts said:

I believe this is all that insurers offer - third party driving of another car with owner's consent.

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The only bit I would add is that the car must NOT belong to you or be hired to you. Belong to you means more than not registered in your name - you must have no financial interest in the vehicle. in other words you can't buy a car, register it in your mums name and drive it on DOC. Neither can you drive a car on DOC if it was bought by a parent for your use.

For the benefit of those not clear about what third party means - if you are driving on DOC and hit a lamp post, the insurance will pay for the lamp post but not for the car or any injuries to the driver.

sludgeguts said:

But won't there also be conditions in the nano print along the lines of this not being your vehicle or not being your main vehicle, you can drive this on a temporary basis etc etc etc.

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Motor insurance is run on what the law calls "utmost good faith" which means the driver must tell the insurers everything. DOC is the exception as occasional use usually* does not need to be disclosed. Any regular arrangement to drive a car on DOC, or long term use under DOC, must be disclosed.

sludgeguts said:

I was always under the impression that each car had to have its own insurance cover anyway, so even if you are out and about, if the car isn't insured you will still get pulled, you can tell plod that you are driving under your own third party cover but the car will still get a marker for being uninsured - so if it's noticed again you would be seen as evading insurance?

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That depends on your individual policy. Increasingly insurers are insisting that the car has other cover as a condition of YOUR insurance. This is to avoid the hassle that occurs when somebody thinks their DOC gives them the same level of cover as comprehensive - that they can park the car, walk away and still be covered. There is no requirement in law that a car has two lots of insurance cover.

*I have recently seen an insurance which had DOC but required the driver to phone the company and say what he was intending to drive on DOC and how far he intended to drive it.

Stu DemonD said:

Alex said he won't pay the fine if he gets caught, so it will be interesting to see what happens when/if he goes to court

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When somebody refuses to pay a fine the court has a number of options.

Order an attachment of earnings so that the employer is required to deduct money from each pay packet until the fine is paid. Plus the fee the employer is entitled to add on to cover the inconvenience.

Order a deduction from benefits which works as above.


Send the bailiffs in.

Send the person to jail in default. The length of custody being directly related to the amount owed.