Car insurance after conviction

Car_54

frankgraham2001 said:

the real question here is whether or not an insurer will treat me better if i have no points, a short ban and a conviction as opposed to a conviction, 6 points a licence revocation and fine?

i am trying to decide which route to take. the circumstances behind special reasons was an error that occurred while i was booking temporary insurance. at the last stage i clicked ok to finalise the cover and got up and left before the error presented itself. as such i was unaware that i wasn’t insured. i have booked this many times without issue but apparently the insurance company had my risk profile and had not informed me. as such i did my usual thing and booked only to be denied at the final step and i missed it. i have multiple cover notes from previous cover to demonstrate that i always insure myself and i have the browsing history showing that i was online booking insurance the day this happened.

so - will insurers adjust down for not having been given points meaning that the bench accepted that this was an accident ?

The magistrates may wel wonder (and maybe ask) why you didn’t mention any of this before.

Aretnap

Exodi said:
The special reasons that are typically argued are things like not having a vehicle significantly affecting a persons earning ability (e.g. if driving is required for their job).

No they're not. Special reasons not to endorse do exist, but they must be special to the offence, not to the offender. Basically something that makes the offence much less serious than it normally is. The fact that a ban or an endorsement would cause hardship can never be a special reason not to endorse.

Thing that might amount to special reasons in a no insurance case include:-

You had an honest and reasonable belief that you were insured, especially if you were misled about the car's insurance status by someone you had good reason to trust;

You drove because of a genuine emergency;

You only drove a short distance for a good reason (for example to move a car that was in a dangerous position, and no insured driver was able to move it)

You're confusing special reasons not to endorse with an exceptional hardship plea, which is a reason not to impose a totting ban after you have had your licence endorsed and reached twelve points. However there is no opportunity to make an exceptional hardship case for a revocation under the New Driver's Act as that's a completely different process to a totting ban. If the court does impose 6 points then the DVLA will automatically revoke the licence, and the court has no involvement in the process or discretion to prevent it.

Aretnap

Car_54 said:

The magistrates have specific guidance NOT to apply a ban in order to circumvent revocation, so that's very unlikely to happen.

They do, however anecdotally there are a fair few benches willing to overlook the guidance if they hear a good enough reason. A solicitor who knows the court in question well will be able to say how likely this is to happen; the OP will have to judge for himself whether the solicitor is being realistic in his assessment or whether he's making a sales pitch.