Temporary car insurance

To get temporary car insurance with Cuvva, you have to be aged between 19 and 65.

And if you're younger than 21, you need to have held a full licence for at least a year, with no at-fault insurance claims.

For learner drivers, the requirements are a little different. You just have to be aged between 17 and 45.

You need to have a GB driving licence to get a short-term car insurance policy with Cuvva, even if you're not a UK national.

(You also need to be in Great Britain when you buy your policy. The app doesn't work in other countries.)

There might be some vehicles we can't cover you for. It depends on how long you've been driving.

The faster and more expensive your car, the more experience you'll need to have to get insured with Cuvva.

The best way to find out if you can get insured on your vehicle is to get a short-term car insurance quote in the app.

Buying a policy:

When you buy a policy for the first time, we'll need you to take a photo of the whole front of the vehicle. It needs to be taken “live”, which means it has to be taken at the time, in the app. You can't upload an old photo.

That means the vehicle needs to be nearby when you buy the policy. (We ask for this so we know what condition the vehicle's in, just in case you do need to make a claim.)

You'll also need to give the app access to your location. We're not being nosey - location is one of the things we use to work out the price of your policy.

Once you've paid for your short-term car insurance, your policy will start.

It will start straight away. For now, there's no way to buy temporary car insurance with Cuvva in advance.

But if you would like to buy in advance, get in touch with us through the app and let us know.

That kind of feedback is really helpful when we're deciding what features to add.

Cars have to be worth more than £1 and less than £40,000. And they can't be:

• Older than 20 years
• Modified
• Scrapped
• Impounded

Vans have to be valued between £1 and £20,000. And they have to be in an insurance group lower than 20.

Those are the main things to look out for. But there might be a few other restrictions from time to time set by our underwriters.

To double-check we can cover you, it's best to get a quote in the app.

There are two kinds of excess: mandatory and voluntary.

We only offer mandatory excess on our short-term car insurance policies. The amount changes depending on the person buying the policy.

We take a lot of different things into account when we work out your excess, including:

Your age. Younger drivers tend to have a higher excess than older, more experienced drivers.

The vehicle you're driving. Faster, more expensive cars tend to come with a higher excess.

Your location when you start the policy. If you're based in an area where there are lots of incidents, your excess will go up a little.

We don't offer voluntary excess, and you can't adjust the mandatory excess. But it's always shown clearly in the app before you buy a policy.

If you think you might need a bit more driving time, you can extend your policy in the app in just a few taps.

You can extend as soon as you're a quarter of the way through your policy.

Extending is flexible. So if you bought a month-long policy in the first place, you can extend it for just a couple of hours, if that's all you need.

You can pay for your short-term car insurance using any major debit or credit card (including AMEX) and Apple Pay.

We can't accept PayPal or bank transfer, and Android users can't use Google Pay. (We're working on it.)

You can only pay for temporary car insurance policies with your own card, and you can only buy them for yourself. We do this to stop fraud.

If you're borrowing a car, and the owner already has an underlying policy, your short-term car insurance won't affect their underlying insurance at all.

Even if you went and crashed the car, it wouldn't increase their price when they come to renew their car insurance. And it wouldn't affect their no-claims bonus, if they have one.

But it is worth letting the owner know exactly what you're covered for. That way, if you do have a crash, they'll know exactly what damage is covered.

You can do that by sending them a copy of your policy documents. You can find them in the app. We'll email you a copy, too.

But do make sure you get the owner's permission before you insure their car.

There's a very boring but very important law in the world of car insurance called Continuous Insurance Enforcement (CIE).

It basically means that cars have to be insured all the time - not just when you're driving them.

That means you can't buy temporary car insurance just when you want to drive, and then leave your car uninsured the rest of the time.

We wrote a bit more about CIE laws on our blog.

Our temporary car insurance includes class 1 business use as standard.

Not all car insurance policies cover you for business use - especially short-term ones.

Most of them only cover you for what's known as “social, domestic and pleasure” use. That means you're not covered for work-related driving (other than your commute), like visiting clients.

If you have a problem using the app or buying short term insurance, get in touch! Our in-app chat is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

On average, we'll get back to you within 1 minute.

When you refer a friend, you both get £10 off your next short-term car or travel insurance policy.

Just go into the app, tap the profile icon the top-left corner, and scroll down to “refer a friend”.

But the discount won't be applied to your account instantly. It won't come through until the person you refer redeems the discount.

When you buy a car insurance policy, it's added to the Motor Insurance Database (MID). You can check the MID to make sure your car's insured, and the police can also use it to check that your car's insured.

But the MID can take a little while to update. When you buy temporary car insurance, the MID doesn't always get updated by the time you're on the road.

We send your policy to the MID as quickly as possible, but sometimes it just doesn't update quickly enough.

But don't worry. Even if your temporary car insurance isn't showing up in the MID, it's still legal and valid. As long as you've got your policy documents, you'll be good to go.

You can find them in the app. We'll also email you a copy when you buy your policy.