What about insurance when lending a car?
Lending a car is often not something you do lightly. This is because damage can have major consequences for your wallet. Damage caused by someone else can cost you tens of thousands of euros. Keep in mind that the person lending you a car does not know the car very well, so there is a greater chance of damage.
When insuring a car, you must specify who the regular driver is. This does not mean that others are not allowed to drive the car. Lending your car does take risks, and not just for your car insurance.
Car lending: how is your car insured?
Before lending your car, you should think about the risks. How the car is insured plays a major role. You run the biggest risks if your car has third-party or limited liability insurance. If the borrower causes a collision, these types of insurance do not pay for your own damages. So you have to pay for this yourself. You can try to recover damages from the person who borrowed your car, but how difficult will it be to recover damages of hundreds or even thousands of euros? Incidentally, the person must have willfully inflicted the damage for you to be able to recover damages. So this will be difficult in practice.
Losing damage-free years by lending your car
Accrued claim-free years are linked to the insured car. If damage is caused with the car, it comes at the expense of the accrued years. This is also true if someone else was the driver of the car during the accident. Damage caused while on loan may also increase your car insurance premium.
Is your car insured when you lend it?
When you purchase car insurance, you enter the license plate number of your car. Car insurance is based on the license plate of a car, not on a person. Even if you lend your car to a family member or friend, he or she is insured, provided they drive the car with your permission and are in possession of a valid driver's license. Do they cause damage while driving your car? Then the question is whether the insurer will pay for the damage. This depends on the coverage of your car insurance. So always keep this in mind before lending your car.
In several ways, an injury can cost you money
Damage to your car can be a problem. First of all, a fault damage caused by your car will cost you claim-free years. Over several years, this can also be a cost of many hundreds of euros. You may also have to deal with a deductible. This is a part of the damage that the insurer will not pay out. In addition, there may be an additional deductible if the driver of the car falls under the category of young drivers.
Not lending your car anyway
Lending the drill to a neighbor doesn't run much risk. Lending a car is an entirely different story. In addition to the insurance issues, you have to remember that you are responsible for the conduct of the driver of your car. For example, you face fines even if you were not the driver yourself. You also run this risk when you rent out your car through various rental sites. Read all about the risks of renting out your car here.
You can make good arrangements in advance about lending, but the question is whether that makes sense. Can you agree that the borrower will reimburse repair costs in the event of an accident? Are the agreements actually enforceable if the charges run into the thousands of euros? Often not!
In short, be careful about lending your car. In case of damage, there could be a financial problem.
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