In May this year I was released from Prison. During this time my Car Insurance had expired, so I contacted a few companies for quotes.
I was shocked to be quoted £600 a year, when my previous insurance had been about £200.
The car I have is a W reg Hyundai Accent, worth, if I am lucky about £800, so my insurance was costing nearly as much as my car.
I obviously informed the insurers that I had an unspent conviction and was informed that was why my insurance was so high.
I did inform the companies that my conviction did not involve driving and during my 3 years of offending I had never had an accident, so my offending did not effect my driving negatively.
They stated that did not matter, I had an unspent conviction so I had to pay higher premiums. I ask them to explain how my conviction, which was not driving related, meant I had to pay £400 more, for my insurance. The people I spoke to on the phone could not answer me.
I then informed them that I now understood why most convicted people did not have insurance, if they were being discriminated against just for having an unspent conviction. When I said this to one of the companies, the reply I got was, " well you have to get the bus."

I can understand premiums going up for people where the offence involved bad driving, but where the offence does not involve driving, how can insurance companies penalise people for just having an unspent conviction. The argument could be that when you committed your offences you showed bad judgement, so that may result in bad driving. Rubbish, I drove for 3 years whilst I committed my offences and it never effected my driving. This is just a way for insurance companies to make more money from people who have made a mistake.
I am sure people who work for Insurance Companies have made mistakes and their insurance premiums have not been hiked up, because they have not been caught. Is there a law that says if you have a conviction, you have to pay higher premiums on your insurance?

Convicted people are being discriminated against for being convicts. Surely we are a group of people who in society are being treated differently, just because we have a conviction. Surely it is time we were treated as other groups in society who are treated differently because of their colour, race or gender. Surely we are a group that should be covered by the discrimination Act.
Is there a campaign already started looking at this? If not should we not start one. How can any one be charged a higher premium for insurance, just because they have a conviction.
How can anyone be refused a job, just because they have a conviction. Surely a conviction on a piece of paper, does not mean that this is the person you are. What is shows is at that time you made a mistake, it does not show the character you are. My offending occurred between the age of 45-48 years old. I was not offending every day through out that period, and when I was not offending I was a god man, contributing to Society. Surely convicted people are being discriminated against and we should be raising this in Government and the media.
As Unlock states, "there are thousands of people who have convictions, that now do not commit offences. They have a wide range of skills that would be beneficial to Society, but they are disregarded just because they have an unspent conviction.
What I did was wrong! What I am is a good man.