The effects of penalty points on your car insurance

If you are a frequent road user in the UK, the penalty points system should have a familiar ring to you. To put it simply, with every motor offence you are convicted of, penalty points would be added to your licence. The more serious the offence, the more points would be added. When you reach 12 or more points within a period of 3 years (6 points or more within 6 months for new drivers of 2 years), you might risk losing your license. To add fuel to the fire, you might face higher insurance cost and trouble renewing you motor insurance.

How do the penalty point system work?

As mentioned above, the penalty points added on your license after a motor offence is convicted, here is the corresponding list of all the endorsements. Depending on how serious the offences you are convicted of, the offence codes and penalty points would usually only stay on your driving record for 4 or 11 years. You can check your driving record here.

Although the endorsement would be removed automatically after it becomes invalid, your insurer would still have access to your conviction records anytime in your 4-year endorsement, or the first 5 years of your 11-year endorsement.

How does penalty points affect your insurance cost?

Insurers would usually request details of all your accumulated motor convictions over the past 5 years. Considering people who have been convicted of a driving offence for the past 5 years are more likely to be involved into accidents and making claims, your motor insurance is likely to go up.

The insurance costs would also fluctuate according to how serious your offence is, i.e. your insurance is more likely to cost more if you have seriously injured someone with dangerous driving. On average, a 3-point conviction is likely to raise your insurance cost by around 16%; while a 6-point conviction on a previously clean license can raise your insurance cost by 30%.

Here are some ways to reduce your insurance cost with penalty points on your license…

Having penalty points on license means you are likely to pay more for your insurance and have less policy options available. However, you can always try reducing your overall cost with other measures. Here are some of your options:

• Improve security, e.g. parking your car in a well-lit, secured car park, install better security system
• Avoid modifications
• Limit your mileage
• Install a black box

These are just some of the methods to lower your insurance cost, you can also try comparing different insurance policies before you renew your insurance to ensure you find the best deal. We can provide the most reasonable convicted car insurance for your specific needs. Talk to our experts today on 0161 388 2539 today for more info.