A Definition of Third Party Motor Car Insurance

It is law in this country, as specified by the Road Traffic Act, that all road users are covered by a certain minimum level of insurance. If there is an incident involving you, another person if they were driving your vehicle or the registered owner of the vehicle, third party car insurance will give you cover for any claim that may be made against your insurance. Third party cover or a higher level does actually provide more protection than the law requires and this can be as basic as third party only, third party, fire and theft or comprehensive.

If an incident occurs and you are at fault and have to admit blame then your insurance cover will pay out any sums of money that are granted to the people who are the 'third party' that may have died or been hurt or their property has been written off, damaged or similar. Also included in this would be the injured party's and your own legal fees.

However, there can be confusion and the matter does become more complicated if you happen to be a passenger in your own car being driven by somebody else. If the person driving your car has your permission to do so, then they are protected by your policy instead of you. Those who are insured to drive on your policy will be listed, for example, passengers, employees, named drivers. If you were to be injured because the person you have allowed to drive your car has driven badly and caused an accident then you are well within the law to be able to make a claim for compensation from this driver. Your third party insurance would, in this case, reimburse the driver of your vehicle and not you, but in turn, you would be able to make a claim and more than likely be successful, in winning damages on your third party cover against the driver of your car. Remember though that this does work both ways if in the case above the driver was injured, or worse, killed then your insurance company would not be liable.



Unfortunately, it is insignificant who was actually driving because, under this clause of the cover, you cannot claim for any damage caused to the car.

If as does often happen, a thief steals your vehicle and goes on to crash your car causing damage to it and possibly others then under this part of the policy you will be protected as the owner of the vehicle against any claims of injury or damage caused by the thief. On the down-side, the owner of the vehicle, even though it is very unfair, will lose their no claims bonus due to a scenario which is completely out of their control and can never be expected before it happens.

We have to remember that these guidelines are set out and are the law and at the end of the day, the objective is to protect the innocent party who may bear the brunt of physical injury or damage to their property which may well be caused by a stolen car. The chances of any car thief being able to pay for any such damage is remote, which therefore, does actually justify, the innocent party being able to claim on your car insurance policy.

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Michael Challiner

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