Hi what experience have people had when applying for car insurance quotes whilst having a non-motoring conviction against their name? My current insurer is unable to offer me a quote this year so the race is on to find a decent price before the 1st November.

Hi Dave,

When applying for any insurance you only have to disclose your conviction when asked.

If you are asked you only have to disclose your conviction if it is unspent. If your conviction is spent you do not have to disclose it.

At Unlock we have a list of car insurers where some only ask about motoring convictions. Therefore, if you only have a unspent non motoring conviction you do not have to disclose it as they are only concerned with motoring offences. I have attached a link to our information hub page 'List of motor insurers'. 

https://hub.unlock.org.uk/knowledgebase/list-motor-insurers/

I hope this is of assistance to you in your search for car insurance.

Debs








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For me it was really easy. I had always used a broker but didn't fancy having a conversation about a conviction with them, so went online with companies who do not ask about non-motoring. I used LV= and ended up paying £30 less than via the broker.

As an aside - a broker will often be able to access deals/special pricing only available to the broker channel, so if you're prepared to have a conversation and provide conviction details, they can be very useful as well.

Hi Yankee

Thanks for the reply

Yes I ended up going through LV as I didn't fancy having a conversation with them. After seeing the list that Debbie provided, and triple checking that there was no mention of non-motoring convictions in their policy details booklet. (the beauty of having the document in electronic format - you can just do a CTRL+F for the relevant terms rather than having to eyeball it all)

Cheers

Like many I presumed my car insurance would rise after my conviction.
When I had the reminder from my existing policy, I went straight onto the
comparison websites, and sure enough, of the half dozen or so who provided a quotation,
most were at least double my normal price.
Out of desperation, I decided to try LV on a direct basis. I could not understand how it came
back so reasonable, I tried again with the same result!!
Knowing there is no point of any insurance if, when you might need to make a claim, the company
finds you have not answered correctly some of the questions and cancel your insurance you are left in a difficult position.
So I called to speak directly with LV and asked the question "Do I need to declare any convictions" Is it a motoring
conviction they asked, " No it is not a motoring conviction" I replied. Then that's OK they said.
I immediately took out quotation they offered, (which was about thirty pound LESS than my original policy offered on renewal)
I have since discovered, most if not all comparison web sites include the question, "do you have any criminal convictions" obviously
you have to say yes. But there is no option to say it is not a motoring conviction. Consequently any insurance company
signed up to the comparison web sites, presume you have a motoring conviction.

Hi Banjoman

Great news about LV - we actually include them on our list of motor insurers but always good to get some first hand experience.

As you say, always best to approach car insurers directly rather than go via a comparison website.

Thanks for the update.

Debs

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I use LV as well and am very happy with them. Before I went with LV a trick I used was to ring the insurer direct and ask them straight out if they needed to know about any conviction? If I didn't like the answer I put the phone down without giving them my name etc something  along the lines of "Hi I am looking for insurance for *#:~?><  but I have a criminal conviction can you offer cover? It surprisingly worked quite well and avoided any embarrassment later on. Or another version was " before we start can you offer cover to someone with****?" 
I would strongly advise not to use comparison websites as they all farm and sell your data on and you probably dont want that spread around.

Hi All 

I'll be updating our list of motor insurers over the next couple of days as it looks as though both Direct Line and Churchill have changed their 'assumptions'. 

For example Churchill used to ask

"Have you had any motoring offences including convictions, endorsements, fixed penalties, bans or points in the last 5 years"

Their assumptions now state:

"The total number of convictions, fixed penalties or disqualifications for all drivers does not exceed 3 in the last five years".

It's unclear whether they're still only interested in motoring convictions - I'll try to get some clarity from them.

If you've already got a policy with these insurers which automatically renews, please make sure that you check your new policy to make sure you're still fully covered. 

From what I can currently make out, LV, More Than and the Co-op have made no changes.

Debs

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I always found it much cheaper to apply directly than using comparison sites. I thing the general 'Have you got any unspent convictions' tick boxes don't provide relevant information to the insurers and they class them as the 'worst of the worst' without knowing specifics.

I had an insurance policy through a broker - who put the premium up after disclosing. I challenged it (I have never made an insurance claim in all my years driving!) - the premium was dropped (I still left under principle!).

I don't have a car myself but there are situations where I might borrow my son's car.

He called his insurance company to have me put on his insurance. He was asked no qualifying questions and my name on his policy actually reduced the premium - go figure.