A lot of times we think that our car is insured but in reality it’s not. It doesn’t even have to be done purposely to avoid paying for insurance or with hopes that you won’t get caught but it happens due to just a tiny mistake of overlooking if your car is insured still.
Reading Time: 2 minutesIs it important to get your car insured?
Yes! It is necessary to get your car insured in the UK, anyone driving without insurance is driving illegally and if caught will have to pay a fine that could be around £300 and will even get six penalty points. If the matter of driving without insurance is taken to court then you could even be disqualified from driving.
Even if you simply have your car parked on the road and aren’t driving it, you will stay face a fine of about £100. The only way you’re exempted is if you have a SORN declaration.
According to the law, you need at least third-party insurance to drive a car. Third-party insurance is the most basic kind of insurance.
Knowing how far your insurance policy covers is very important to know. Some policies even offer you insurance when driving someone else’s vehicle while some don’t, so look out for the one you have. Insurance covers drivers not cars so don’t let just anyone drive your car because if any damage comes to the car then most insurance companies won’t take responsibility.
Checking if your car is insured
The first thing to look at when wanting to know if your car is insured is having an idea of whether you bought an insurance policy when you first purchased your car or not because if you didn’t then the higher possibilities are that it’s not insured because insurance isn’t transferred when cars are bought or sold. However, some places do offer temporary or short-term insurance for like a week or so till you can work on buying insurance for yourself.
The easiest way to check whether any vehicle or yours is insured is by MID which is a motor insurance database. Through this, you can just check whether your car is insured online. The only thing you’ve to do is enter the car’s registration number and it will tell you if the car is insured or when it was insured in the first place.
If you recently bought insurance like a day ago or something then give it some time before rechecking on MID so that it gets updated.
When does my car insurance expire?
When you first buy insurance, you get a few documents that have all the important details. Among these documents will be the information of when your insurance runs out. In case, you lose your documents or can’t understand, just give your insurer a call and he’ll guide you further.
Always look at emails because many insurance companies send reminders about your insurance policy expiring soon.
Does my insurance renew automatically?
If you had already bought an insurance policy before and are clueless whether the insurance is still covered or not than it could be possible that it was renewed.
Most companies send you a reminder beforehand about your insurance policy expiring soon. However, sometimes we end up neglecting it, so they usually renew automatically. This can be rechecked by either contacting the company or looking at bank statements to make sure some money was deducted.
It is way better to know when it expires so that you can pay yourself in advance to have it be less costly as last-minute payments are always more costly.
Always make sure, you know your insurance policy very well and find the best most suitable insurance for yourself.
