Car Insurance info

[catt]

Has anyone had any experience being involved with a non insured car driver? I noticed that car insurance is not compulsory (not that we would want to be without such a commodity) in NZ. Just curious as to where your own insurance company would claim for recompense for the money they have to fork out to cover damage and stuff if its the other drivers fault. Also is there a facility to sue the other driver and is it expensive to do such a thing as i would assume your own insurance company would really up the premium after the event.

[alan&moyra]

Hi Catt

we took car insurance out when we bought our car, it is not expensive to do this but the premium is based on the car value, similar to the UK but the value of the car dill make a massive difference to the premium, unlike the UK where it is almost based on they type of car.

If you do get involved with an uninsured driver and you are not insured then you need to sue them, costly procedure, but if you are insured and you can prove who did the damage your company will most likely cover you up to a certial value.

Hope this helps

[Glenda]

I was in a pile-up involving a non-insured driver here in NZ many years ago, but it seems that nothing has changed since. I had 'Third Party, Fire & Theft' was shunted from behind by the non-insured driver and pushed into the car in front. My insurance company paid for the car I was pushed into, but I did not get a penny to repair my car. I did consider suing the uninsured driver, my insurance company looked into it, but it seemed that he did not have insurance because he was broke and unemployed, the best offer was $5 a month, and not worth following up.

Comprehensive car insurance is really quite cheap here, compared to UK standards. They do have pretty high premiums for under 25's, which is why so many uninsured drivers are youths.