What's the penalty for driving with no insurance please?

mattymoo

movilogo wrote: »

I personally like to see insurance cost becoming affordable to people so that no one will think of driving without insurance!
The insurance companies make huge amount of profit. Why doesn't the govt. regulate the market? There are only a handful of insurance underwriters. Then they trade under different names (like Bell, Diamond, Elephant all belongs to Admiral). Like houseprice, insurance premia are also over inflated.

1) It is regulated by the FSA.
2) Many insurers do not make a profit on the provision of motor insurance. Expressed as a ratio the claims costs in relation to premiums are often 100-105%.
It is only investment returns and cost cutting excercises inhouse that allow a small margin of profit.

vaio

raskazz wrote: »

I'm afraid this is ill-informed dogma. Motor insurance is a highly competitive market. In real terms, car insurance is as cheap as it has ever been……….

Not sure about that………

Way back in the 70’s when I was a young apprentice with a shiny new licence my insurance was about £40 (for a Mk 1 GT Cortina) this was about 2 weeks wages.

Our current apprentice pays £1400 for a Rover 25 (aka Metro), this is about 3 months wages for him.

On similar lines, back in the 70’s my dear old dad got me added to the family car (2l Mk4 Cortina) insurance for not very much money, couple of years ago we tried to add our 18 year old offspring to one of our family cars (2l Mondeo) and the company wanted to increase the premium from £200 ish to £2000+.

Whilst I absolutely don’t condone anyone driving without insurance I can see why even normally law abiding youngsters might be tempted.

zebidee1

greenstick wrote: »

If someone failed to disclose details of an offence which occurred BEFORE the inception of the policy, the insurer is (as I understand it) entitled to recover the difference between what was charged, and what should have been charged.

And quite rightly so, otherwise the honest people subsidise the law breakers. Again.

Just to confirm.....the policy had been taken out last July and the points were got this May. The person said they were told they only had to inform of the points at time of renewal, but that directly contradicts the situation that I linked to in an earlier post, hence my query.

greenstick

zebidee1 wrote: »

Just to confirm.....the policy had been taken out last July and the points were got this May. The person said they were told they only had to inform of the points at time of renewal, but that directly contradicts the situation that I linked to in an earlier post, hence my query.

Sorry Zibidee, wasn't accusing you (or anyone for that matter) of anything.

I spent 4 years working as an insurance broker and have seen the devastation and cost to others that uninsured drivers leave behind them. This is a subject that really gets me going.

I apologise if you felt I was having a go

tomstickland

Insurance premiums for young males are very high. The fines are low. Hence there is a temptation for some to take the cheapest route. We all end up paying for this since there is a fund set up to cover uninsured drivers.

Personally I think that insurance is pretty cheap considering what it covers.

zebidee1

greenstick wrote: »

I apologise if you felt I was having a go

No, no, I didn't honestly. I just wanted to clear it up, that's all.

kaligand

I made a mistake of driving without insurance after changing cars. Got caught. Went to court and got 6 points and £100 fine plus £60 fine. This is the minimum.

Worth making an appearance in court.


There are some hard hearted people on this forum.

epz_2

a £200 fine is sod all frankly but 6 points would be a serious pain.

frankly the problem seems to be the insurance companies targeting the risk too specificly, sure 19yr olds are riskier but if everyone gets older so why not group them together a bit more so you over pay a small amount more when you are older and richer.

the problem will likely get sorted by the sorn cameras and the electronic insurance database but i do think there should be some sort of cap on the third party proportion of insurance for young drivers up to a couple of shunts.

i dont mean 19 year olds should be able to get M5's etc but it its for the greater good if they can afford to insure a metro rather than just saying sod it and taking a small fine if caught.

anewman

philhuff wrote: »

Considering that insurance for someone under 21 costs an average of £1,100, there's a clear benefit to not insuring a car.

I've always wondered why it's cheaper to be fined for not being insured than being insured.

Suppose the worst thing though is when you come to getting insured you may have difficulty finding an insurer who'll insure you and expensive premiums where they will.

Thing that annoys me is if I lived at my GF's house the premium would be over £200 cheaper. £200 difference just because of a postcode. Yes my area is crap and there's w*****s everywhere, but I'm not one of those w*****s and I won't be driving like a complete nutter in a manner likely to cause accidents. I don't see why my risk is different because of where I live really, accidents can happen anywhere.

iolanthe07

I've always wondered why it's cheaper to be fined for not being insured than being insured.

I asked a magistrate about this, and she said that they are instructed to impose fines at a level where there is some prospect of them being paid. Fining a 19 year old chav £2000 for not buying a £1000 insurance policy would be pointless and a waste of police time trying to catch up with the !!!!!!, because he (and it usually is he) would not pay. Much better to confiscate and crush their cars - and make them watch!