Third Party, Fire and Theft (TPFT) used to be fairly common – especially in my early days when everyone drove old bangers and new cars were for those with disposable income only!
Now, as budgets tighten, the demand for this low-cost cover has escalated — but the majority of insurers appear to be uneasy about offering such over regular comprehensive insurance.
Ian Crowder at AA Insurance told us:
“It is true that more insurers are deciding to no longer offer TP or TPFT policies. I believe this is a reflection of the fact that most TPFT policies are bought by either young drivers and/or older cars and thus expose insurers to greater risk and, unfortunately the claims experience tends to support that.”
AA was one of the few that quite clearly offered their customers Third Party cover when you hit their website.
“AA Insurance is a broker, however we act in much the same way as a direct insurer. We have a panel of over 20 insurers, yet if you buy an AA policy the terms and conditions are identical regardless of the provider. The majority of our insurers offer TPFT on the AA policy whether or not they offer it themselves direct and we have no plans to change that and we feel it is important to continue to offer customers that choice.”
With them is Aviva (Norwich Union), who has been quick to capitalise on this growing trend and has included the policy on its website, offering a 10% discount if it is taken out online. Whereas previously TPFT insurance was offered as a “one size fits all” product, Aviva is offering bolt-ons such as Protected No Claims Discount, Legal Cover and Breakdown Cover to give its customers greater flexibility.
We checked with leading insurers for the availability of TPFT via their websites:
Churchill: hidden away in the small print in their second page, but they do still offer TPFT.
Prudential: no obvious cover offered, but on asking were told:
“Prudential does offer TPO, TPFT and Comprehensive cover … via the website. The quote will be automatically prepared on a comprehensive basis, but there is an option to reduce this to TPFT if required. If the customer wants Third Party Only, they have to phone the call centre. The website … does currently talk mostly about comprehensive cover, however the intention is to provide more information about TPO and TPFT in due course.”
Esure: redirected us to its sister website First Alternative.
More Th>n: didn’t advertise TPFT as an option on its welcoming pages although it did include details in policy summaries.
AA: offered both Third Party and TPFT as a cover option when requesting a quote.
RAC: offered TPFT on its welcoming page and listed a selection of optional “add-ons”.
Cornhill: did not advertise TPFT on its welcoming page nor did it include any details in its policy documents.
Admiral: at first we couldn’t find any mention of TPFT cover on their site, but on asking were told:
“On our internet site quotes default to Comprehensive cover and we don’t really promote F&T as comprehensive makes up our core business. However, it’s fairly clear on the price screen that there is a drop-down list for cover and if you click on this, F&T is an option. You can therefore buy F&T cover online if you wish, subject to vehicle value less than 5k.”
It seems that while some insurers are still offering TPFT on their web pages, few are willing to scream it from the rooftops. Indeed, all the big flashy “quote” buttons you see on the majority of insurer’s sites take you to a comprehensive cover quote form — no initial option to select Third Party cover only.
More Th>n’s Nick Dear explained:
“The reason why we default our cover to comprehensive is based on the fact that most of our customers buy comprehensive cover. Making this the default provides the majority of our customers with an optimal user experience when getting a quote, as recognized by our 1st place position in the recent Insurance Times/Global Reviews benchmarking study of Motor Insurance Quote and Apply functionality. … Customers can always select TPFT by selecting “Update” on the “Your cover details” section of the quote screen.”
A mixed bag of reasons, then, as to why Third Party cover seems to have disappeared – on one hand, insurers are trying to make customers online experience clearer by focusing on their main product of comprehensive cover, but on the other they also don’t actively promote TPFT due to the “riff-raff” it attracts.
One main point that stood out to us was that TPFT is not really as cheap against comprehensive cover as it used to be. A better solution, therefore, would be to take a higher excess on a comprehensive policy if you really need to save money.
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