What is short term car insurance?

Short term car insurance can be useful if you are borrowing a car or lending yours to someone else. What actually is short term car insurance, though? You might well ask this question because most people have never heard of it or even have had reason to think about it and the majority of consumers have always assumed that yearly insurance policies are the only ones that have been available. This has not been far from the truth in the past; only a small number of insurers offered smaller term policies and these were very expensive simply because they cost more time, and therefore money, to set up than traditional ones. Fortunately the Internet has changed all that and there are now a few companies offering policies that last for between one and 28 days.

Buying a short term motor insurance policy is very easy. You visit the websites of one of several companies that sell these policies, fill in an application form, select the length of time you want to insure the car or van for, pay online by credit or debit card and provided that you meet their criteria you can be covered and drive away immediately. You don't even have to wait for your documentation either, most companies allow you to download it right away, and you can print it off on your own home computer. Five minutes after starting your application you can be driving the insured vehicle with perfectly legal fully comprehensive or third party fire and theft cover.

Many people from time to time find it necessary, sometimes at very short notice, to drive a vehicle belonging to someone else or to allow a friend or relative to drive theirs and it is always tempting to 'risk it'. However, even if we ignore the very severe penalties for driving without insurance, the fact is that any time you are driving, an accident may occur and you could be liable for virtually unlimited damages. Short term car insurance is one of the ways in which you could avoid this possibility.