Be Safe In The Short Term

Insurance doesn’t become any less necessary even if you’re only going to be driving a car for a short period of time! Whether it’s because your main car is in the shop or some other reason, whatever vehicle you’re using to make do in the meantime for a few days or weeks still needs to be insured for your safety and everyone else’s. Fortunately, getting insurance for a brief span of time doesn’t have to be hard or cumbersome. In fact, some companies offer auto insurance policies designed just for those kinds of situations.

Temporary or short term auto insurance gives you just the same protection as any other good insurance policy, but it applies for a specified amount of days. It can also be a useful policy choice if you have a temporary driver involved in your long-term vehicle, allowing you to properly insure the other driver while not impacting your overall major insurance policy.

A short-term car insurance policy is likely to have the same kinds of coverage as the ones in your auto insurance coverage, namely comprehensive coverage or third party liability coverage. Comprehensive coverage does not necessarily cover all contingencies; it however indemnifies the insured for more coverage items than the third party liability coverage. In addition to accidental injury and property damage to a third party, it also covers the holder or a temporary driver who is named insured on the insured vehicle, and other perils as collision, theft, vandalism, extreme weather, and fire among others.

By contrast, liability will only tend to the expenses caused by the driver or vehicle to an outside entity’s person or property. The latter is usually cheaper, but also, obviously, riskier, so carefully consider your finances and the level of risk involved with the vehicle.

Thanks to the glories of technology, obtaining quotes for short term policies is very easy. You can get quotes from a wide variety of sites online, and then compare them to see which ones offer the coverage you need at the best price. There are even sites designed to help you directly compare the different quotes so you have to do even less work! This can save you a lot of time and money, and you may not even believe how fast and simple it is until you’ve tried it for yourself. Don’t be afraid to look at policies from many different reputable companies, the tools are out there to make it a non-stressful process.

And finally, this is so important that it’s worth repeating: do NOT think that you can get away with no insurance just because you’re only going to be driving a vehicle for a short amount of time! You can’t know when an accident will or will not happen. You can’t predict the wiles of a thief or vandal. If you get caught unprepared in just assuming that the best will happen, you could end up paying a lot more than any temporary insurance policy would have cost you in the first place. Push yourself the extra bit necessary to stay insured all the time, and you’ll feel safer as well as be safer.

Susan Reynolds is the webmaster for a leading South African Insurance Provider who specialises in Car Insurance.