Imagine driving off the lot with your brand new electric car and a "free" insurance offer in tow—what could possibly go wrong? In the latest episode, I, Graham Hill, pull back the curtain on these alluring deals to reveal the often overlooked details that could leave you in a bind. From personal anecdotes that highlight the harsh reality of minimal coverage to practical advice on protecting your precious no claims discount, this discussion is a treasure trove for anyone looking to safeguard their electric vehicle investment. As we navigate the insurance maze together, you'll discover the true cost of skimping on coverage and learn how to arm yourself with a policy that truly has your back.
Then, we transition to exploring the various insurance cover options that exist for your electric chariot. While it's tempting to dismiss the nitty-gritty of your policy, I emphasize the crucial need to be prepared for all eventualities—because let's face it, life loves to throw us curveballs. And just when you think you've got it all figured out, I tease an exciting sneak peek at the next episode where I'll unveil some electrifying advice about a breakthrough product. Strap in for a journey through the ins and outs of electric car insurance; it's an episode that promises to illuminate, educate, and maybe even surprise you.
To watch this on video click: https://youtu.be/yW9JkOWhYww
To buy a copy of Electric Cars - The Truth Revealed visit grahamhilltraining.com
Hi, I'm Graham Hill and welcome to another podcast. I’m the author of Electric Cars – The Truth Revealed. You can download a copy of that by visiting grahamhilltraining.com where you can buy it for just a few pounds. And if you want to pay for the upsell, which is the training course, due out in 2024, then you're welcome to do that at a very low cost compared to what it will cost as a stand-alone training course, likely to cost hundreds of pounds. These initial podcasts are all to do with insurance as applied to electric cars. I'm not covering everything that's in the book, but all the main issues that you may face moving into an electric car, things that you need to take into account. Some subjects included in the podcasts are specific to electric cars whilst others apply equally to ICE cars as they do to electric cars. My next subject is one of those. Whether you intend buying an electric car or an ICE car this will make interesting listening.
Now, as we've always learned in life, there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's always a price to pay, and that couldn't apply more to free insurance. Now why do the dealers offer you free insurance? They’ll explain that It makes life easier for the dealer, especially when it's a brand new car. You've got your brand new car on order. You're coming up to the time when the car needs to be registered which requires an insurance covernote. Whilst the dealer may offer you free 5 or 7 day insurance I would not recommend it. In my opinion I would suggest that you don’t take out the free insurance. Take out the insurance that you want through your own insurance company. Then you know that you have all the features included in the policy. Because although the chance of you having an accident in those first five or seven days it could happen. The chances are equally remote but someone wins the lottery each week. The dealer will explain that when you take out the free insurance, it makes life easier for the dealer because they would have an arrangement with an insurance company such as Aviva. You're given their telephone number, you phone them up and give them all the details that have been given to you by the dealer along with your personal details and they then issue a cover note on the car. They've now got all your details. They issue the cover note for five to seven days. The cover note is emailed over to the dealer, they can now register the car and everything goes ahead very smoothly. It's a little bit more complicated if you have to do it yourself through your own insurance company and then get them to issue the cover note by email to the dealer. It's not that much more complicated but and here's the big but, you will include everything you want to include in the insurance for those few days that may not be included in the free insurance policy.
A few years ago I had a call from the Telegraph. I get on with most of the national newspapers as I often provided them with stories and comments when asked. They mentioned that they had a slot coming up at the weekend that they wanted to fill with a car story. They asked if I had a brief article that I could give them on cars? I said that I could write something for them on free car insurance which they included. I pointed out that some of the free policies were very basic, just providing the least amount of cover.
This may mean that the contents of the car, if they get stolen out of the car, may not be covered or they may be limited to £100 per claim. You may have a laptop or mobile phone that you leave in your car that gets stolen leaving you out of pocket if it costs over £1,000 to replace but the free cover has a £100 limit. There are one or two other things that you may not have covered. One that certainly won't be covered is your no claims discount protection. So if you have a claim in those first seven days whilst you've got the free insurance, you won't be able to carry the no-claims discount protection over. So even though you've had it for many, many years on your own insurance, you've now lost it because you've made a claim and you've not got the claim protection. So again, it's a reason why you would want to take the insurance out yourself and ignore the free insurance.
Now, there was another interesting thing. There was an incident that happened when my article appeared in the Telegraph. One of their readers wrote into them and said – ‘That chap Graham Hill had it absolutely spot on’. He picked up his new car. (I think it was a Jaguar, but don't hold me to that, sorry, jaguar, if I'm wrong. I'm pretty much 100% certain it was a Jaguar). Anyway, he picked the car up, drove it to the end of the road, a stone kicked up and cracked the windscreen. He goes back to the dealership and points out what had happened asking the dealer to replace the screen as covered by the free insurance policy.
They explained that the windscreen was not covered by the insurance. The reader became annoyed and insisted on speaking to the dealer principal who, after a lengthy and heated discussion agreed that it was strange not to cover the glass and agreed to replace the windscreen. That's clearly ridiculous not to cover the glass which I believe cost about £1,400. If the reader had not stood his ground he could have been £1,400 out of pocket as a result of taking the free insurance. He agreed with the Telegraph that it was right to highlight this situation because when he checked the policy, there were a number of things that weren't included in the policy that you would probably want to have included as standard when you take out the insurance. So taking out the free insurance is not a great idea. It might save you 5 or 10 pounds but is it really worth it?
Now there is another issue on this particular point of the replacement windscreen. Because if this was the case, as I've already told you in one of the earlier podcasts, replacement windscreens on electric cars are a lot more expensive, in fact six times more expensive than a standard windscreen. Standard windscreens for ICE cars are about £400 pounds. However, the cost to replace an electric car windscreen, given the different material used along with more expensive fitting and sensor/camera recalibrations resulting in costs of about £2,400. So that's a lot of money. And if you haven't got that covered by the insurance and the windscreen cracks during the free insurance period you could be in for a big bill. Another reason why you wouldn’t take the free insurance when buying a new electric car.
There’s another reason why I don’t recommend taking the free insurance. I was checking through various free insurance policies and I found that they said that your data would be collected and could be shared with other partners. And then it went on to say other partners in EU countries and countries outside the EU, so pretty much the rest of the world. So they could share your data with anybody in China or Russia or anywhere they choose to share your data. They can share your data as a condition of taking out the free insurance so by signing the free insurance agreement you have given them the right to share your data with pretty much anyone they choose. So there's two really good reasons for not taking out the free insurance. One, because you want to get the cover that covers everything you want to have covered if you have an accident, and on top of that, it's your data, and once you've taken out the free insurance, they've got carte blanche to share your data with just anybody they want to, and that's why you'll then start getting loads and loads of advertising come into your inbox because they've now passed on your email address and other contact details.
I'm not saying that they actually do that, but it's in the terms and conditions of the contract. So check that out and check to see if the policy provides you with adequate cover. So my recommendation is get well prepared in advance through your own insurance provider and start getting quotes between 21 and 23 days. You need to organise your insurance and if you do that, then you can ask them, once you've got the registration number, to issue a covernote and email it to the supplying dealer.
By organising your cover rather than taking the free insurance you ensure that you are adequately covered. And don’t forget that whilst the cover you arrange yourself may include loss of personal items in the car automatically up to several thousands of pounds the free cover may not include this cover at all. And most important is the no claims discount protection cover. If you don’t have this included in the free insurance you lose that continuity and following a claim you could lose all of your accumulated no claims discount. The chances are that you won't have an accident and nothing will happen during the period of free insurance but that is a risk you must weigh up. Okay, that's another one. I think we are now coming towards the end of the insurance podcasts, but I've got one more subject at least that I want to tell you about, because I think it's a great product. So watch out for the next one. Some great advice. I've been Graham Hill. Thanks for watching.