Insurance companies used to accept company cars registered to the company being insured by the individual, however they seem to have cracked down on this and many now insist the car is registered to the user. Tesla, as per @forddj ’s experience are truly diabolical at the admin side of this. They really should do better, bearing in mind DVLA are also a nightmare to deal with with their very strict rules surrounding change of R/Ks.
Thanks for sharing, I'm in the same boat, like yourself, I was planning to put the company name and then care/of with my name to get the personal insurance benefit. Looks like I need to choose "one person" under the drop down menu instead to save all this hassle.
I found out that it depends on who the Insurance company is. Both Direct line and Admiral didn't care if there was Care Of or not, it was the official registered keeper that mattered. With Admiral the Company is the registered keeper but the insurance is personal.
Whilst the registered keeper is the Company, with Admiral I still have personal insurance. Direct Line used to do this (in fact their Chatbot Online gives an answer that says your Employer Company can be the Registered Keeper for your personal insurance), but since changing systems / underwriters - no longer allowed. This confused the 3 different Direct Line agents I spoke to..... But in the end, the Directline "Computer said No". I assume, the Registered Keeper is either:
Option 3 is not an issue, at all. As long as the company own the vehicle, the tax breaks can be claimed. The registered keeper of the vehicle should be the person who regularly drives the vehicle, even if this is a company car. If your accountant is squirming with the idea of a company car being registered to an individual, you may wish to consider finding a better accountant.
My accountant tried to tell me the company had to be the registered keeper. I told him he was talking nonsense and put it in my name anyway. as others have said:
I’ll be honest here, Tesla are simply being an ar** with the nonsense over who the vehicle is initially registered to. There’s no reason they can’t register the vehicle to whomever the purchaser requests. I don’t think the C/O line (which is effectively the first line of the address) makes any realistic difference, and I feel it would just give an insurance company wiggle room to refuse a payout. We ended up biting the bullet and changing the R/K to the wife, taking the previous R/K hit. DVLA displaying the number of previous R/Ks is also a load of nonsense and this being used as a way of valuing vehicles is another load of tosh, but here we are.
I just phoned Churchill and they said if Tesla put my company name, C/O my name, then I would need to change my Churchill policy to show the Company is the registered keeper, not me. But she said I can make that change for free. Then she said if when I get the V5C, they've actually put my name, I can just change it back for free. So I guess I don't feel that worried because Churchill will just let me switch the registered keeper for free depending on what Tesla put. And because all the phone calls with Churchill are recorded, I have a record of everything, so hopefully should be OK...
They may charge nothing for the administrative change, but your policy cost is likely to go up considerably if you show a company as the R/K. We saw differences of around £1000 (and many companies refused to quote) when showing the company as R/K.
Sorry I should have clarified; they said there was no admin fee but also there was no increase to the premium
I can already see she made the change on my account and the premium cost hasn't changed
Interesting. In years gone by, insurance companies weren’t fussed if the car was registered to a Ltd company / spouse / close relative, however around 2 years ago they started clamping down and got really fussy if the car wasn’t registered in the policyholder‘s name. I wonder whether they’re starting to back off from that stance?Sorry I should have clarified; they said there was no admin fee but also there was no increase to the premium
Well one thing I did notice was that many insurance quote websites ask 1) who is the RK and 2) who is the owner. But Churchill only ask who is the RK. I phoned them a few times, and they confirmed they don't even care who is the owner, only the RK. (Although they did agree to put a note to say the car was owned by my Ltd company). And regarding the RK, I obviously only have this single experience (as explain in previous post), but switching the RK from me to company was simple, instant, and without any cost. As you say, maybe they care less now. Not sure!
We’re with Admiral. They wanted a lot more money initially just for having the R/K as the company. During our renewal earlier this year they refused flat out to provide a quote showing the company as the R/K. That’s when we bit the bullet and changed from C/O to showing the wife as the R/K.
ok so in February, I purchased the car and it clearly stated on the Tesla order forms that I could have the V5C registered in a personal name and the invoice would be in the company name.
I found it to be around £70-£100
