Changes to car insurance rules and why you should buy online

Car insurance rules have changed. And it’s a really important change to take heed of. You will now need to declare your car ‘off the road’ if you are not using it and don’t want to be fined for not having insurance.

If you are a registered driver and you do not have car insurance, you will first get a warning letter followed by a £100 fine if you fail to comply. This fine could then jump to £1,000 and you can be taken to court and get a criminal record.

Previously, police would have to catch uninsured drivers actually driving without insurance before they could prosecute them. Seeing as there are currently around 1.4 million vehicles on the roads that do not have insurance, trying to catch them all is a logistical nightmare.

People that do not have insurance wreak havoc for those that do. Not only are 23,000 people injured and 160 killed every year by uninsured drivers, but the costs of dealing with it increases the price of insurance for the people that do have insurance policies.

Insurance, at least third party, is a legal requirement in the UK. Third party insurance is designed to offer the bare minimum coverage and protect other people involved in an incident.

Many people forgo insurance because they believe it to be too expensive. But it doesn’t have to be. There are many ways to lower the cost of your car insurance, such as increasing security by storing your car in a garage and opting to pay a higher excess on your insurance to lower the premium cost.

Another great way to reduce the cost of your car insurance is to buy it online. Santander for instance will give you £50 cashback if you buy insurance online.

There are other benefits to buying online too, and according to a recent GoCompare survey, most people already know them. 42% of the drivers surveyed feel they have learned more about the ins and outs of car insurance through buying policies online. As a result only 14% buy based on price alone; most know to look for other benefits such as the level of cover, the excess and no-claims discounts.

However, only 11% use the internet in isolation, completely bypassing other methods of purchase. There is still some way to go, but in terms of price comparison and as a research tool, the internet is catching up on more traditional methods of buying car insurance.