SORNing and insurance. Confusion.

[Atterz]

Hello fine ladies and men of the three-O-six owners club,

I have a quick question. My Saab is up for tax renewal at the end of July or August, however as you know i'm not back in the UK until November. However, the car is insured until January and I wish for it to stay that way for no claims bonus etc. Is it legal for me to Sorn the vehicle and leave the insurance running? Then when I return, with the new fancy tax disc laws etc I can simply go online, tax her and drive again?

I have googled this but I can't find any hard facts. I'd obviously rather not pay £485 and waste 3 months of it .

Thank you kind people!

[Toms306]

Theoretically not, you should have both tax and insurance or neither.

However, my step Dad has his car SORN'd but insured legally, he had to phone the insurance and explain the situation though.

[Fooby]

Honestly i'd give your insurance a call.

Personally the tax fact is, if its on the road it must have tax. If its off the road, it can be SORN.

I'd discuss the issue with your insurance, since, technically if its still insured they could assume you are some pikey scum driving around without tax.

[Danny2009]

If it's tax and tested it needs to be insured

Not sure if it needs to be taxed if insured

Sorn it and ring the insurance tell them to pause it as your not using car

Ring them up when you want to start using it and they will continue the insurance on

Job done

[Dum-Dum]

IIRC you can sorn and insure it as the insurance covers the car if it say gets stolen, catches fire and burns your neighbours car with it or somehow decides to roll away into something.

Its taxed but not insured that you get a fine for automatically.

[kentiiboii]

I was wondering this as well becuase end of October the tax on the '6 runs out. Ill be adding another car to the policy to use over winter.

[DavidA]

I have a feeling that they've introduced a rule that they need to be insured even if off the road ie SORN. But I may be wrong.

[procta]

leave it insured, some people lay up their cars for months, but keep the insurance running, so that they can just bung tax on and they are way.

[Atterz]

Happy days, that is all the confirmation i needed. I could accept if it was £110 a year, but £485... in 3 months thats £121 saved, nearly 2 tanks of fuel.

Cheers chaps, always helpful x

[RetroPug]

I have a feeling that they've introduced a rule that they need to be insured even if off the road ie SORN. But I may be wrong.

No, that isn't true.

You can insure a SORN'd car against theft, fire damage etc. but you should notify your insurers of this.

Otherwise every junk car sitting in someone's yard would need to be insured.

[silverzx]

Yeah, you don't HAVE to insure SORN'ed cars..

The whole point of SORN is stating it's off public roads, therefore it should be on private land which is going to have it's own insurance (if any). I'd never bother personally.

[Atterz]

Its on camp and i dont mind the insurance to keep running ill be honest. Cheers for the answers, as long as some government nosh bag doesn't try and fine me for doing it.