I was going to change the insurance for my car but it was going to be very expensive unless I took a third party policy, instead of the fully comp that I have now. (OH's old banger is third party anyway).
Now if you're still with me, very nice lady at Mapfre tried to tell me that in Spain its very unusual for anyone except expats to insure a car, of more than three years, for fully comp.
The reason sounded very complicated to me and I gave up trying to work it out, but it was along the lines of... "it's not worth it because all insurance companies split the car into areas when they cover accidents. Some split the car in half down the middle, some ac cross the middle some into quarters and some even split the roof from the rest! The excess on the policy is then applied to each part, so if the car is split down the middle and you smash it all ac cross the front, you would pay two lots of excess as it counts as two parts of the car! They only cover you for 80% of the list price anyway and you end up paying out more than the difference between third party and fully comp"!!! Got that?
Now, I would like to know if I just look stupid or if there's any truth in there somewhere?
Last week I was told by an insurance broker (different company) that to insure my 17 year old son, I could put the policy in my name and he could drive. I pointed out that the policy specifically excluded riders under 25 and was told that it would be OK as the police don't care who's name is on the policy!
When I asked what would happen if he had an accident he had to admit that they wouldn't pay out! The worrying thing is that I only went to this broker because a friend's son had insured his bike through them and thought my son could do the same. It turned out that he had believed what the broker had told him, was riding under his Dad's name and hadn't read the small print!
It was Mapfre that told me that they split the car up!