This month, please allow me to be serious for once, as I’m about to let you into a secret… Okay, so it may be a bit difficult to take a bloke seriously when he has a 50-inch waistline, a flat cap and a pet Rottweiler that answers to the name of Fluffy, but something’s about to happen that’s going to change the independent car trade massively.

What is it? Continuous insurance, that’s what. Later this year (it was supposed to be last month, but Swansea, as usual, wasn’t ready in time), the DVLA is introducing a policy in which it is the registered keeper’s responsibility to ensure that any car not currently declared SORN will also need to be insured.

This Orwellian coming together of two massive computer systems – the DVLA’s Vehicle Records and the Motor Insurance Bureau’s MID (Motor Insurers Database) will mean there’s no place to hide for those horrid little scrotes that drive around without valid cover, or a care in the world for whose lives their negligence might affect. Keep a car on the road, or taxed, without insurance cover and bang! Computer says no, and you’ll have to fork out an instant fixed penalty.

A few people in the trade have murmured that the new system is a pain in the what-not. Why? Because it means they’ll have to input the details of every car they take into stock on to the MID database. In theory, though, you should all already be doing this, not least as an arse-covering exercise against those indiscriminate ANPR cameras that traffic police like to have in their Volvos these days.

If the car’s not on the MID, it can be seized, trade policy or no trade policy. But more so because it’s a condition with most insurers, these days, that they know exactly which motors are on your books. For me, it’s never much of a problem – my insurer has a website into which all I do is type in the cars’ reg numbers. It then identifies the make and model itself and adds it to my policy. I then delete the cars as and when they’re sold – takes less than a minute per motor, and I’ve made it a ritual part of both the buying and selling process.

What few people in the trade have thought to consider, though, is the incredible impact this new regime will have on the private sales market.

‘It will mean there’s no place to hide for those horrid little scrotes that drive around without valid cover’

For guys like me, and other independents, it means rich pickings. Let me explain…

Today, as things stand, some customers shy away from part-exchanging their old car. They know that a dealer is unlikely to offer them as much as they’d realise by selling the car privately, so those who can afford to (often, if the car is worth less than £3k and they’re buying the new one on finance, they can afford to, as it’s a good way of releasing capital!) will sell their old vehicle themselves, once its replacement is sitting prettily in their driveway.

But what’s already happened is that they’ve changed their insurance policy to include the new car at the expense of the old one. They’re not planning on using it, so for the sake of the two or three weeks it’s sitting around awaiting a positive response to the Auto Trader ad, said old car is uninsured.

But when Continuous Insurance kicks in, that practice is banned, and said seller is left with no choice but to either insure two vehicles at once (and pay for the privilege), or trade-in his or her old car to a helpful soul like you or I, who has the flexibility in his insurance policy to not actually give a damn. Given the uncertain timeframe of selling the old car, the vast majority, I suspect, will plump for the second option.

And what that means is, for the first time in a very, very long time, we’re going to see oversupply in the trade-in sector. More and more cheap cars coming in through main dealers and independents, a greater supply of part-exes going through the auction houses and a shortage of private ads in our papers and auction websites. The competition, folk, will be trade-to- trade. And it also means the very fabric of the independent end of the trade will change – more good clean cars, lower prices and less rubbish being punted around forecourts, left instead for the boys who operate out of lay-bys with fluorescent cardboard as their only form advertising. Assuming, of course, that they’re properly insured.

Who is Big Mike?

Well, that would be telling. What we do know is he’s had more than 30 years experience in the car trade and picked up some seriously funny  tales along the way. You can read more Big Mike here