Friday poser - re-using a personal plate?
 

My camel train of thought wandered off to this one last night.

Say you own a car, for which you have bought and transferred a valuable personal plate.

The car is stolen and never recovered. (Maybe broken for spares or gone to Russia, whatever)

Are you allowed to somehow get the plate from the DVLA and put it on your replacement car?

I'll assume the answer's yes, but just wondered...

Yes
if its not recovered you can get the plate back after 12 months if i remember correctly. In fact, it might even be longer than that- its on their web****e somewhere.
You HAVE to wait this time if it is not recovered- no way around it.

If it is recovered, then no problem just take it off as you normally would.

In theory, you could always take the v5, mot etc if it was stolen and take the plate off anyway as they dont inspect the car- but in reality as the dvla check would probably show it as stolen during the transfer process,I doubt that would work.
So no way around it sadly.

Purely guessing here so don't take this as the definitive answer, but if the car is stolen and not recovered the insurance will pay out. At this point, the insurance company own the car (so they can sell it - or what remains of it - if it is recovered at some time in the future). Presumably the insurance company then own the registration number as well.

I have no idea if it is possible to insure the number separately from the car to cover this situation.

You can take insurance out on the number plate.

Car stolen.
Reported to police/insurance.
Get letter from insurance stating they have no interest in the plate.
put letter in very safe place.
Send off V5.
Get cheque for car.
wait 12 months.
Contact insurance company and get back V5 (if car not recovered)
Transfer to new car.
Return stolen car V5 to insurance company.

No guessing,been there done that.