Car insurance for One Day

Most policies are effective for a whole year; however, you can buy insurance for short periods of time, even for one day. Even though such policies are somewhat expensive, there are cases where coverage for one day is the best way to go.

Who needs such a policy?

There are many scenarios where you would need coverage for only a few days. Your car may, for instance, be in service after an accident, you have to borrow a friend’s car and you are not listed as an approved driver on his policy. Or you may be uninsured, don’t need a car on a day to day basis and want to take a short trip for the weekend.

Some people buy such a policy just to have their car registered. If you are going to buy a car you aren’t going to drive, and you don’t have a valid insurance policy, you can get coverage for one day just to show as proof, take the car from the dealer and head straight to the garage. Whenever you will want to drive it, get a regular policy.

The importance of awareness

A lot of people don’t even know that these policies exist, so they are missing out on some deals. An uninsured motorist, for instance, will drive without insurance and risk getting caught if he needs the car for a few hours and doesn’t have alternative means of transportation.

Consequences of driving without insurance are harsh. Next to having your driver’s license suspended, you will pay some hefty fines of up to $1,000 for the first offense and have to do some jail time. Most offenders also get a SR-22 requirement, so if you want to have your driving privileges reinstated, you will have to pay a lot for insurance.

How to buy short-term auto insurance

Most insurance carriers will sell you coverage for a couple of days, even though they don’t advertise such products openly. Follow the known path to get your quote – grab an online car insurance calculator and make sure you specify the desired period of time when asked.

A lot of companies will understand that time is a valuable asset and allow you to print the registration certificate right after you have sent in the payment. This will keep you from waiting for the package to get to your doorstep via a next-day delivery service.

Pricing for one-day car insurance policies

You can easily imagine that the rates per day will be much higher than the cost of the average yearly policies divided by 365. There are fixed costs involved, like the maintenance of your file and analysis of your driving record, and they will be billed to you. Assuming you are over 25, have a valid driver’s license and a fairly clean driving record, you should be looking at something in the range of $10.00 per day, maybe even less.