There are two main ways of getting insurance to get a car out of a police pound. You can buy a specialist short-term policy, or get someone else to insure it (which will probably mean selling it to this person). Which is the best and cheapest one for you depends on your circumstances, including your age, and driving record, and whether or not you want to keep the car.

Getting a short-term policy

This may be a far cheaper option, again depending upon your circumstances. The absolute minimum that the law will allow is a policy which covers 30 days; this means that conventional short-term policies, which normally run from 1 to 28 days, will not be accepted. Specialist policies do exist however that will be accepted by the pound and you can probably arrange one of these by ringing 0161 388 2552.

Another benefit of this is that you will be able to talk to a highly experienced adviser who can help you make sure you get the right policy, and who can give you any more information that you need on how to recover your car.

Alternatively you could get a quote online: visit the Prudent Plus/Safely Insured site and under 'Reason For Cover' select 'Impound Release'.

Getting someone else to insure it

Just about every insurance policy which allows the policyholder to drive any car not belonging to that person specifically excludes using it to recover an impounded vehicle. This means that the person who is to get it out of the pound has to have a policy for that particular car.

Whilst it is theoretically possible to insure a car that does not belong to you it is horrendously expensive; a ballpark figure could be as much as 10 times the usual premium! In addition short term impounded car insurance is only available for registered keepers. It would be necessary therefore for whoever insures it to actually own the car. This means that you would have to sell the vehicle to this person; and it would have to be a genuine sale, too. For more details on how to do this visit our 'how to sell an impounded car' page.