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Third party motor insurance gives you cover for any claim made against you, your driver (if someone else was behind the wheel) or the registered owner of the vehicle. The law requires that you must buy a minimum level of insurance cover. All motor insurance policies issued in the UK giving 'third party cover' or more, will provide greater protection than the law requires. Whatever policy you buy, be it 'third party only', 'third party fire and theft' or 'fully comprehensive' it will provide this level of protection. If you are judged to be at fault for causing an accident your insurance company will pay for all sums of money that are awarded to those people (the third party) that you have injured or killed, or whose vehicle you have damaged and so on. They will also be liable to pay any legal costs you have to pay to the victims solicitors and any legal costs your own insurers incur looking after your interests. This whole question of third party insurance becomes very confusing when you are a passenger in your own car and it is being driven by another person. Provided that the driver is allowed and has your permissionto drive it, then it is the driver who is protected by this part of the policy and not you. Your policy wording will list those who are covered to drive the car, for example, named drivers, passengers, employer . Thus if you, as the passenger, were to be injured because of the bad driving of the other person, you have the legal right to claim damages from that person. So your policy here would protect the driver, not you. You would end up claiming (and almost certainly winning) damages from the driver on your own third party policy. Don't forget that this is a two edged sword. In the event that the driver were killed or injured whilst driving on your policy then your insurance company would not be liable for any claim. Unfortunately, immaterial of who was behind the wheel, you cannot claim for damage to your car under this section. If a thief takes your car and causes an accident (sadly this is an every day occurrence) this section of the policy will protect you, as the vehicle's owner, against all claims for injury or damage caused by the thief. This might seem unfair - after all it was the thief who was to blame, yet it's our no-claims bonus that will be lost. You must remember that we are concerned here with the law. We have to insure that we can compensate innocent victims who suffer damage to their property or physical injury caused by a stolen car. Which car thief has the money to pay for that? So it is possible, in actuality, for the victim to claim against your policy. .
Article Source: http://www.financemanual.com
This article was penned by Trevor Dace. He has many years of experience working as a claims adjuster with a number of UK insurance companies. His website www.instant-online-insurance.co.uk offers uk car insurance with online quotes and secure online payment.
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