AA Insurance urges drivers to Stay Insured

AA Insurance welcomes the Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) ‘Stay Insured' campaign, which is aimed at drivers who may be thinking about letting their insurance lapse on renewal or cancel it because of financial difficulties.

AA Insurance, has reported a 17 per cent increase in the number of customers paying by direct debit who have defaulted, underlining the importance of this campaign.

Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, says: "The MIB initiative focuses on the vital importance of keeping your car insurance up-to-date.

"Customers who cancel their cover or don't renew run a serious risk of being stopped by the police, who are increasingly using automatic number plate recognition technology to identify uninsured drivers.

"If you have no insurance, your car will be confiscated, is likely to be crushed and you will be prosecuted. The police are stopping 500 vehicles suspected of being uninsured every day.

Last year, 185,000 cars were seized and 40 per cent of those were crushed. It's just not worth the risk."

Douglas is also urging people to check that the registration number on their certificate is accurate.

"We have noticed a sharp increase in the number of customers being stopped because they have recorded the registration number wrongly. Common confusions include letters and numbers such as 0 and O or 1 and I (such as some Northern Ireland plates). Getting numbers or letters transposed or confusion between similarly-sounding letters (such as N and M) is also surprisingly common - it's easy to do. Insurance staff can make mistakes too."

He warns: "Simple errors like this can result in a lot of wasted time and inconvenience - to say nothing of the typical £150 charge plus £20 daily storage cost to recover a car that has been confiscated"

In 2011, the Government is tightening up car insurance rules by introducing continuous insurance enforcement (CIE) which means that cars must be continuously insured even if they aren't being used, or a ‘Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)' sent to the DVLA.

Douglas adds: "It is unacceptable that law abiding insured drivers pay more because of the uninsured - on average, honest motorists pay £30 as part of their annual insurance premium to pay for the victims of uninsured drivers."