The UK Insurance Blog

There’s an article on the Sky News website discussing an AA report on the increase in uninsured drivers. It seems that the total number of cars seized by the police because of no insurance rose from 78,000 in 2006 to 150,000 in 2007, with 40% of cars seized not reclaimed.

Maybe, just maybe the police with their car mounted cameras are winning the battle but there still seems to be big loopholes for the criminals to avoid buying insurance. Apart from the ‘Chancers’ who just hope that they don’t get caught, there are at least two other common groups.

The first are the people that either don’t register their vehicle, or register it at a fictitious address. These people get away with thousands of pounds worth of parking fines and congestion charge payments but they won’t gat away with driving without insurance if they get caught by a police camera car.

It seems that another dodge is to put foreign number plates on your car. The police computer doesn’t keep a record of foreign registered vehicles in use on UK roads, so people driving on foreign plates are not likely to be caught. Next time you see a right hand drive car with foreign plates ask yourself how that could happen, since we’re about the only country left that drives on the “proper” side of the road. Let’s hope that the police have a similar thought and hopefully a swift purge will sort out a few of these criminals.

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Further to my piece a couple of days ago, I’ve just been reading some information from the Manchester Police saying that uninsured drivers are six times more likely to have convictions for driving un-roadworthy vehicles and nine times more likely to have convictions for drink-driving.

And their crimes are said to put an extra £30 on every car insurance premium.

The latest technology fitted to lots of police cars ensures that vehicles not registered on the database system (it checks insurance, road tax, driving license and MOT) automatically trigger an alert to officers who, under the new powers, can seize cars. - That’s Good !

Drivers unable to produce proof of insurance have their vehicles impounded.

To reclaim their vehicles, owners must pay £105 for recovery, £12 a day storage, and a £200 fixed penalty notice or a fine imposed by a court. - That’s Bad !.

So for around £350 they can retrieve their cars and be driving around uninsured again, because it’s a certain fact that they won’t be wanting to pay the insurance premium that’s demanded following their conviction for “no insurance”, drunk driving etc.

If an owner fails to reclaim the vehicle within 14 days, it is crushed, scrapped or sold. - Ha…there’s the answer then. Lock ‘em all up for 15 days when you seize the car. When they get out and pay their fine present them with the block of crushed metal - Oh I like it!.