Looking for Convicted Driver Insurance?
Convicted driver insurance is more expensive and that’s just a fact. Whether you have points on your licence, a driving ban or a criminal conviction, you can expect to pay significantly more to insure your vehicle.
Convictions will always represent higher risk and so higher premiums. This quick guide outlines what to look out for when looking for motor insurance with points on your licence, after a driving ban or with a criminal record.
What you need to declare when applying for motor insurance
Points on your licence and how long they remain active for depends on the circumstances. Some are removed after 3 or 4 years whilst for more serious offences points will stay on your licence for 11 years. Regardless of whether points are active or not, insurers will want to know about all points within the last 5 years.
When in comes to applying for convicted drivers’ insurance:
The last thing you want is for your policy to be invalidated.
Just to be sure that no assumptions concerning your driving history have been made. Even if you have not been asked explicitly about convictions, it’s a very good idea to check that questions haven’t been ‘answered for you’ in the small print.
Ways to reduce convicted driver insurance
Convicted driver insurance is more expensive because of the increase in risk. However, depending on your insurer, there are ways to decrease risk and in turn lower premiums:
Higher excesses
It is worth discussing this with your insurer as some will automatically increase the excess for drivers with convictions. Agreeing to an affordable, but higher voluntary excess may be a way of keeping costs manageable.
Awareness courses
Insurers encourage participation in courses such as speed awareness or drink driving rehabilitation. Although there is no guarantee these will affect your premiums, they are looked on favourably by insurers.
Limited mileage
If you don’t need to drive far, limited mileage schemes can be a viable way of reducing premiums. The thought being that the more you drive, the greater the chance of an accident and vice versa.
Black box policies
Some insurers offer black box or telematics policies which can reduce premiums by monitoring the way that you drive and adjusting your policy accordingly.
What is convicted driver insurance?
Convicted driver insurance is vehicle cover for drivers with points on their licence, returning to the road following a driving ban or drivers with criminal convictions. The term is broad, but basically covers drivers considered higher risk behind the wheel due to their actions.
There is a broad spectrum of driving offences in the UK each incurring varying endorsements on your driving licence, fines and disqualification depending on the nature and severity of the offence. Some of the most common include:
Referred to as IN10, driving without insurance is a criminal offence and understandably is heavily frowned upon by insurers.
*not all IN10 incursions are deliberate, sometimes motorists simply have the wrong policy i.e. they weren’t covered for business use or their policy was invalidated because they had failed to declare modifications.
Whether this is drink driving or drug driving, statistically both significantly increase the chance of accidents and point to reckless behaviour behind the wheel. Resulting endorsements, fines or bans are dependent on the levels of intoxication, damage, injury or fatality caused.
This covers a wide range of transgressions including everything from driving aggressively to eating behind the wheel. Interestingly it does not include driving whilst operating a hand-held device (mobile phone), which has a classification all of its own CU80.
In the eyes of the law speeding is speeding, whether you’re caught by a fixed, mobile, average or variable camera. Resulting endorsements, fines and disqualification depends on the severity of the offence.
Totting up insurance refers to the loss of a driving licence as a result of receiving 12 or more points. These can be for a variety of offences, but if when ‘totted-up’ they result in a disqualification it can obviously be harder to get insurance when your licence is reinstated.
If you’re returning to the road after a ban, whatever the circumstances of the disqualification, it will be harder to find competitive insurance due to the increase in risk and statistically a greater likelihood to reoffend.
Looking for car insurance with a criminal conviction?
If you have an unspent criminal conviction you are legally obligated to declare this to insurers. Failure to do this will most likely invalidate your policy and could result in prosecution for insurance fraud.
Useful sites if you are looking for insurance with a criminal record are:
- www.nacro.org.uk
Nacro is a national social justice charity operating in England and Wales. - unlock.org.uk
UNLOCK is an independent UK-based charity for people with convictions, who campaign for the equality of reformed offenders.
Convicted Driver Insurance – Useful FAQs
You should let your insurer know if you receive points on your licence, although chances are that penalty points will not affect an existing policy. They will affect your policy when you come to renew.
Yes
Driving on any public road without insurance is a criminal offence. The motor insurance database keeps a record of all insured vehicles, making it easy to identify uninsured vehicles, especially if caught by automatic number plate recognition cameras. Police even have the power to seize and destroy uninsured vehicles.
If a driving conviction has expired, you no longer have to declare it. However, many insurers will ask specifically about any past offences within the last 5 years. Interestingly underwriters are not supposed to use spent convictions when calculating risk and premiums.
You should always be honest when speaking with insurers as failure to declare important information in the event of claim could invalidate your policy. However, if you feel that declaring a spent conviction has affected your premium, it is likely that the Financial Ombudsman would find in your favour.