Can I Self Insure My car?

[Alickadoo]

I wondered if I could self insure my car. Apparently you can.

"The rules regarding insurance do not apply to a vehicle owned by a person who has deposited and keeps deposited with the Accountant General of the Senior Courts the sum of £500,000, at a time when the vehicle is being driven under the owner’s control".

I don't think it's going to happen, but -

Is this right?
How many cars can I cover this way?
Do I get any interest from the accountant General?

[TownIdiot]

This reads as if the scheme has now been withdrawn. (Wef 2019)

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/motor-...

[miniman]

TownIdiot said:

This reads as if the scheme has now been withdrawn. (Wef 2019)

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/motor-...

I’d imagine so. £500k barely covers a smart repair with a hire car for 2 weeks these days as far as I can see.

[Chrisgr31]

I heard that some companies still effectively self insure by having a very high excess. So therefore on most incidents they wont be claiming, therefore reducing the premium.

[AlexGSi2000]

I recall watching a popular YouTuber attempting to do this a few months ago.
I think he got quite far down the rabbit hole, but eventually decided the cost would have been prohibative compared to what he was currently paying for insurance.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Chrisgr31 said:

I heard that some companies still effectively self insure by having a very high excess. So therefore on most incidents they wont be claiming, therefore reducing the premium.

The excess on a car insurance policy only applies to own damage. They still need an insurer to cover the tp claims.

[GasEngineer]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

The excess on a car insurance policy only applies to own damage. They still need an insurer to cover the tp claims.

That's interesting.

So if you managed to damage a third party's car or property, with no damage to your own vehicle - would no excess be payable?.

[TownIdiot]

GasEngineer said:

That's interesting.

So if you managed to damage a third party's car or property, with no damage to your own vehicle - would no excess be payable?.

Under the road traffic act your can't have an excess for third party liabilities.

There are some non-conventional products that get around this but they aren't the norm.
In the vast majority of cases the excess you see in a motor insurance policy applies to your own loss

[Aretnap]

GasEngineer said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

The excess on a car insurance policy only applies to own damage. They still need an insurer to cover the tp claims.

That's interesting.

So if you managed to damage a third party's car or property, with no damage to your own vehicle - would no excess be payable?.

In 99% of cases, yes.

There are ways around it. The insurer would have to cover the full third party claim, then attempt to recover the excess from the customer. But if the customer can't or won't pay that gets them into a world of bad debt and collection agencies which is more trouble than it's worth for the sake of a £200 excess. Much easier to set the third party excess at zero set the price accordingly, for consumer policies at least. May be more common on commercial policies, I don't know.

[rlw]

Alickadoo said:

I wondered if I could self insure my car. Apparently you can.

"The rules regarding insurance do not apply to a vehicle owned by a person who has deposited and keeps deposited with the Accountant General of the Senior Courts the sum of £500,000, at a time when the vehicle is being driven under the owner’s control".

I don't think it's going to happen, but -

Is this right?
How many cars can I cover this way?
Do I get any interest from the accountant General?

£500k will not go far if you negligently disable a child who may need care for the rest of their life.................

[Marcellus]

We, as a company, used to self insure….. the premium was the average claim for the past five years.

As a result anything short of writing a couple of cars off was paid out of overheads.. but if a trucker hit something on a motorway then everything was insured…..

At the time we had a fleet of some 4000vehicles on the road and a whole range of drivers…. All vehicles fully insured for any driver.

[TownIdiot]

Marcellus said:

We, as a company, used to self insure….. the premium was the average claim for the past five years.

As a result anything short of writing a couple of cars off was paid out of overheads.. but if a trucker hit something on a motorway then everything was insured…..

At the time we had a fleet of some 4000vehicles on the road and a whole range of drivers…. All vehicles fully insured for any driver.

That's a bit different to what the OP was referring to.

Lots of companies take in the risk for their own vehicles whilst keeping cover for third parties
There are ways of sharing the risks with insurers but that starts getting pretty complex.

[Aretnap]

rlw said:

Alickadoo said:

I wondered if I could self insure my car. Apparently you can.

"The rules regarding insurance do not apply to a vehicle owned by a person who has deposited and keeps deposited with the Accountant General of the Senior Courts the sum of £500,000, at a time when the vehicle is being driven under the owner’s control".

I don't think it's going to happen, but -

Is this right?
How many cars can I cover this way?
Do I get any interest from the accountant General?

£500k will not go far if you negligently disable a child who may need care for the rest of their life.................

That's part of the reason why the option was scrapped in 2019. Other reasons are laid out in the explanatory notes to the change on the law here.

At the time it was scrapped there were only four organisations making use of it - IIRC the AA in two different guises, and two bus/coach companies. If a large organisation wants to effectively self-insure, I believe a more usual way is to use a captive insurer (ie an insurance company which is wholly-owned by the parent company, and only insures the parent company's vehicles).

Certain public sector organisations are still exempt from from the requirement for third party insurance and can self-insure, but they are ultimately backed by the government, which is more than capable of paying its debts, even for big accidents.

[944 Man]

With a £25,000 registration and at least £3,000,000 security bond, you might still be able to.

[Steve H]

Pointless exercise in any case. Put £500k out of reach or stick it in an account paying 4% and you have £20k to pay your insurance bill.

I guess if you are a cash rich company running hundreds of cars and they can all be covered by the one deposit that might be worth it?

[thepeoplespal]

Back in the early 1990s when I was visiting Mount Pleasant in London - CCS (Centrally Controlled Services) had 100+ x 6.5t & 7.5t taillift vans, 20 x17t rigids and 10 x 44tonne artics parked in the most expensive real estate in the world, behind ITN building on Grey's Inn Road, Royal Mail self insured all these, but they also had a policy that kicked in around (I want to say) £50k to pay the bond for self insurance.
So all the money was not even lodged.

This office dealt with claims for London. The policy documents were posted behind glass (more than one) for all to see, it always stuck in my head. Don't think the policy was that expensive either.

[jeremyh1]

Enterprise car hire self insure their vehicles but they have a multi hundreds of millions dollar global insurance pot to cover it maybe even billions I dont know but they are self insured

[WPA]

AlexGSi2000 said:

I recall watching a popular YouTuber attempting to do this a few months ago.
I think he got quite far down the rabbit hole, but eventually decided the cost would have been prohibative compared to what he was currently paying for insurance.

That was Mark McCann, it was interesting but as you said he gave up due to the costs involved

[Mr Pointy]

When the BBC had a fleet of Outside Broadcast vehicles they were self insured on the basis that the premiums to cover a fleet where one vehicle might be worth £1m or more wasn't worth it given they didn't do many miles & had had never had any write offs. Well, at least until a VT van went over a cliff in Spain.

[martinbiz]

Mr Pointy said:

When the BBC had a fleet of Outside Broadcast vehicles they were self insured on the basis that the premiums to cover a fleet where one vehicle might be worth £1m or more wasn't worth it given they didn't do many miles & had had never had any write offs. Well, at least until a VT van went over a cliff in Spain.

It's about the 3rd party risk not their own risk