Refused Car Insurance?
- Problems with getting a quote?
- Turned down by an insurer?
- Not sure how to proceed?
Being prosecuted in a criminal case? Having difficulty in getting car insurance?
If you have a criminal prosecution pending, then any car or home insurance company that you approach for a quotation has a right to ask about it. It is fair of course to say that a prosecution is not the same as a conviction; you may well be found not guilty, or receive only a token penalty. However, insurance companies work on statistical risks, and a pending prosecution makes you more at risk of being involved in a claim in their eyes.
They are therefore perfectly entitled to increase your premium or even refuse to cover you at all.
If you appear in court and are given a reprimand or final warning them that is the end of the matter. This will not have to be disclosed to the insurance companies in the future because it is not the same as a conviction. However, if you receive a fine or even imprisonment this is something that you will have to disclose to future insurers, and your own insurer when the policy comes up for renewal. Eventually the offence, unless it is a very serious one warranting a long prison sentence, will become 'spent', in which case you will no longer need to declare it. You can find out more information about this on our unspent criminal convictions page.
Whether or not you feel yourself to be blameless, you must answer any questions on a proposal form, including any about pending prosecutions, completely and honestly. Insurance companies have many sources of information about their customers and you can be sure that your answers will be checked. If an insurer finds that any information that you have given is incorrect, whether this was done deliberately or not, they have grounds for cancelling your policy and refusing to pay out on any outstanding claims.
A pending prosecution could of course cover anything from dropping litter to major fraud, but many online car insurance websites treat them all the same. This means that if you make an application through a price comparison site you may well find that your application will be automatically rejected.in this event an experienced broker should still be able to find you cover at a reasonable price.