Glossary of Terms

When you buy an insurance policy, you will have the choice to pay extra for certain additional product policies. The additional Products we offer for car insurance are: RAC Breakdown, Legal Expenses cover, Vehicle Assist, Personal Injury & Accidental Death and Windscreen Cover.

How many miles you expect to drive in a year.

This fee is a percentage of your insurance premium, based on risk assessments done when you get a quote and throughout your policy, including at renewal.

Also known as Tacit Renewal, this means your insurance policy will automatically renew when it expires, without you needing to do anything.

The certificate of motor insurance shows what car is covered, who is entitled to drive the car, what the car can be used for, and the period of insurance.

If you have an accident and want your insurance policy to cover the cost of repairing the damage, the formal application you’ll make to your insurance provider is called a claim.

This refers to how you plan to use your car,. These are the car insurance classes of use:

1. Social, Domestic, and Pleasure (SDP): This is for general use, like running errands or going out for leisure.
2. Social, Domestic, Pleasure, and Commuting (SDP+C): This includes all the above plus driving to and from one place of work.
3. Personal Business Use (SDP + Business): This covers both personal use and driving for business purposes, like visiting multiple places of work, clients or running business-related errands.

This is where you give permission for your payment information to be stored so that future payments can be automatically taken from your bank account.

You have the right to cancel your contract of insurance without giving any reason, within 14 days of receiving the Policy documents or the start date of the Policy, whichever is later.

An independent financial information and research business that aims to help consumers make informed decisions about financial products. Defaqto gives star ratings to financial products, on a scale of one to five, so that customers can easily compare them.

DVLA stands for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. The DVLA is the part of the UK government responsible for keeping the records of UK drivers, collecting vehicle excise duty (VED) and issuing driving licences.

A clause which changes the Terms of the Policy. Any Endorsements which apply will be shown on Your Schedule.

This is a fixed charge you’ll pay towards a claim. There are two types of excesses – compulsory and voluntary.

• Compulsory excess – This is how much you’ll have to pay to make a claim. This is a fixed amount, which is non-negotiable.
• Voluntary Excess – This is how much you choose to pay if you make a claim. This is usually agreed when you take out the policy.

Circumstances not covered by your Policy.

FCA stands for the Financial Conduct Authority. It regulates firms that provide financial services to consumers.

This ensures that if you suffer a loss, you are compensated so that you are in a similar position to where you were before the loss happened. It means you will receive compensation for your losses and liabilities to help you recover.

Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) is a tax on all insurance policies. It’s automatically included in the premium price.

The amount your car is insured for.

The legal owner of a car is the person who bought it.

We offer three different levels of car insurance cover:

• Fully Comprehensive – This cover is the highest level of cover available. It gives you the same features as TPFT, plus damage to your car, whether the accident was your fault or not. This includes any vandalism damage, theft, fire and accidental damage. Without fully comprehensive cover you are at risk of having to pay for any repairs yourself. It gives you that added level of protection and peace of mind.
• Third Party, Fire & Theft –TPFT gives you everything you get with third party only. It also covers fire damage to your car, or damage because of a theft or attempted theft of your car. You are not covered for damage to your own car in the event of an accident that was your fault.
• Third Party Only – This is the most basic cover you can buy, legally. It means your legal liability to third parties is covered, including damage to their vehicle or compensation for injuries sustained if the accident was your fault. If your car is damaged in any way, this isn’t covered.

This is the price based on current industry standards for buying or replacing your insured vehicle with one of the same make, model, age, trim level, mileage, and condition.

A Mid-Term Adjustment (MTA) is a change you can make to your insurance policy after it’s already started, but before it’s time to renew it.

Any changes you make to your vehicle from standard, such as alloy wheels, tinted windows, changing the engine, adding spoilers or lowering the suspension, are classed as modifications.

The Motor Insurance Database (MID) is a national database of all the cars registered in the UK. It’s used by the police and the DVLA to check drivers are insured.

This is an additional driver who’s been added to your insurance policy.

A no claims bonus (NCB) is a discount on your car insurance if you don’t make any claims during the year.

A non-fault claim is when we recover the total cost of a claim from the person responsible for the accident.

Not taken up is where you choose not to proceed with an insurance policy after receiving a quote or proposal.

The dates an insurance policy is valid for.

Points are added to your driving licence when you’re convicted of a motoring offence.

The person who takes out the car insurance policy.

This is when an insurance policy is no longer active.

This is part of the insurance contract and sets out details of your policy.

How much you’ll pay for your insurance policy.

The registered keeper of a car is the person who uses and takes care of it.

The date when your current insurance policy ends is when it’s up for renewal.

The legislation passed in the Road Traffic Act 1988 means that all drivers in England, Scotland and Wales must have third party motor insurance as a minimum to drive on roads and in other public places.

SORN stands for Statutory Off Road Notification. If you want to take your car off the road for a while and you don’t want to pay road tax or insurance, you must apply for a SORN. The car must be kept on private property though. If you want to keep it on a public road, it will have to be taxed and insured.

A record of the information you give us, including information given on your behalf and verbal information you give.

We offer a variety of products from our Essentials to Premier cover.

• Essentials – Our Basic fully comprehensive product, which includes a Courtesy car, as well as Key Cover.
• Standard – Our fully comprehensive or TPFT product, which includes benefits like Windscreen cover, Uninsured driver promise, Personal Belongings cover and much more.
• Roadside – Our standard product, with an additional benefit of RAC Breakdown cover.
• Premier – Our standard product, with the additional benefit of cover for Legal Expenses as well as RAC Breakdown cover.
• EV Cover – Our specialist EV product, which includes all the benefits of our standard product, plus things like Battery cover, and public charging discounts.

Underwriters create insurance policies and cover. They decide whether someone is a good risk and worth insuring.

If you have Comprehensive cover and you make a claim where the driver of the other vehicle involved in the accident is found to be uninsured, you will not have to pay your Excess or lose any part of Your No Claims Bonus (NCB).

Also known as total loss in insurance terms, a car is ‘written off’ after an accident when it would cost more to repair than it would to replace.