Parking one, regarding insurance. How does this work?

[Parkypark]

Very boring diagram as it's parking related....

If you have an open air, ground level carpark that is meant to be entered into via a key (which anybody can get hold of, for arguments sake), for insurance, are you in a private and secure car parking area? Cars enter via key but you can walk in on foot without one, so even if you can't steal a car without a key, it can still be damaged by a passer by.

Extra question: if the gates are not working andcare open, should you change your insurance to reflect that?

Better to pay a little more in premiums than to save on premiums and find you're not covered when you need it. You might decide that you can live with paying for damage yourself, but if the gates are habitually open then your car could be stolen, and the insurer would be quite reasonable in saying you'd mis-represented the risk.

You could of course ask your insurers ...

I think you need to give all the facts to your insurers as each underwriter will have their own criteria.

I would say that the area you describe is certainly private but is not secure.

That's what I thought. I haven't got my car there but neighbours do. If it was mine I'd tell my insurers but my neighbours are of the opinion that they can just blame the gate people and keep their insurance as it is because it's cheaper that way, for now I guess. It's not worth my argument, I just wondered what others thought. Thanks.

Yes I think I'd call my insurer and ask them which of their definitions it falls into, plenty of situations where it isn't clear and better safe than sorry...

IMO if the general public can access the car park without challenge, then it's neither private nor secure. Just off road.

my neighbours are of the opinion that they can just blame the gate people and keep their insurance as it is because it's cheaper

Who are "the gate people"? Do they have a contractual obligation to keep the car park secure?

So your neighbours' plan is to pay premiums to the insurers for years in the full knowledge that if their car is ever stolen the insurance won't pay out as the security situation was mis-described (essentially throwing away good money in invalid premiums) and they then plan to sue these "gate people" for the insecurity of the car park?

Frankly they are idiots but happily this doesn't need to affect us.