When is car insurance mandatory?

You are required by law to take out car insurance as soon as the license plate is placed in your name. From that moment on, your details as owner are known to the Rijksdienst voor Wegverkeer (RDW). A car that has already been transferred into your name, but is still at the seller, for example, must be insured in your name from the time of registration.

It is the duty of the owner of a car to insure the vehicle against legal liability as a minimum. But what about when you don't take the car on public roads? Is car insurance mandatory then? Or can you leave the car uninsured in that case. What are the consequences of leaving it uninsured?

Checking whether a car is insured or not is simple. First, a license plate is registered in your name when the car is transferred into your name. On the day of registration, there should also be a notification from a car insurer. This registration from the insurer shows that the car is insured for legal liability. Does this notification not arrive? Then a simple conclusion is that the car is not insured. Registration by name also makes it immediately clear who is at fault, namely the person in whose name the car is registered.

Car temporarily not in use

For example, you buy a refurbisher that you work on for a few months before the car can go on the road. So the car is not on the public roads. You get the car in your name, so there is an insurance obligation. You can get out of the insurance obligation by temporarily suspending the license plate. Temporarily you get exemption from the insurance obligation. But beware! The suspension is only valid for a maximum period of one year. After that, the obligation for third-party insurance arises again. You can request a suspension online on the RDW website. After one year you can extend the suspension, but you have to take action to do so again.