Start my engine

August 15, 2006 12:04 PM

Looking for (preferably) short-term auto insurance in Ontario . . .

I've been told that some insurance companies in Ontario offer short-term auto insurance (30 days-ish), but so far I'm coming up empty. Are there any Ontarians who can point me in the right direction?

And if 30-days insurance is just a pipe dream, how about 90 days? Six months? The car really isn't used for anything but the occasional out-of-town trip (we're living in Toronto and rely on bikes and transit to get around), so insuring it for a full year would be expensive and unnecessary.

(car is a 1989 Toyota Corolla 4DR; driver a 25 year-old female with a clean driving record, if this matters)

posted by Felicity Rilke to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

This question is a little unclear. Ontario law requires automobile insurance. You cannot register a car without it, and cannot legally drive without it. You can get the minimum required, in order to keep your costs down, naturally.

If you live in another jurisdiction and are only residing in Ontario temporarily, you don't need to register or insure the car in Ontario. Just obey the laws of your home jurisdiction.
posted by jellicle at 12:32 PM on August 15, 2006

I think her point is that if the car sits in her garage 9 months of the year, it probably doesn't need to be insured during that time.

Felicity, depending on where you're parking your car (garage v. driveway v. public street), you might also want to make sure that Toronto's by-laws don't prohibit having a car parked on your property with no insurance (I gather it's not an uncommon by-law meant to keep people from keeping junkers up on blocks in their yards).
posted by jacquilynne at 12:50 PM on August 15, 2006

Have you considered selling the car and using a rental when you need to take these occasional road trips? This way you have zero maintenance, and basically get to drive a (more or less) brand new car when you take your road trips.
posted by davey_darling at 2:56 PM on August 15, 2006

I know you can get a six-month policy because I have to renew my (Ontario) auto insurance every six months. I also know you can lapse a policy and not pay more than a very bare maintenance minimum while you are not using the car, yet maintain your regular contract, because I had to do it this year for four months while my car was stranded in the US needing transmission work (I think they charged maybe $30 for those four months - it was for catastrophe or fire coverage, something like that).

I don't know if a company would take to a consistently-lapsed policy for voluntary disuse rather than involuntary disuse, though. But I wonder if you could have an ongoing and continually renewed policy, voluntarily lapsed for most of the year (pay bare minimum nine months, full coverage three months)? You would have to ask your insurance agent if this would be kosher, obviously.
posted by Melinika at 8:07 PM on August 15, 2006

Melinika, this is probably the best we can do, thanks for the advice. If you don't mind, could you could email me (in profile) the name of your insurance provider? We (the car owner and myself) haven't been able to find any providers who will do less than a one-year policy.

Jellicle, the car is in the process of being registered in Ontario, but Jacquilynne basically clarified the question -- the car will quite likely be unused for 6 or more months of the year, so a shorter term policy would be ideal.
posted by Felicity Rilke at 9:08 PM on August 15, 2006

Email sent; hope that helps.
posted by Melinika at 2:32 PM on August 16, 2006