Car insurance news
Speeding convictions may not affect cheap car insurance
2.2 million Brits were unlucky enough to find themselves flashed by a speed camera last year, each incident resulting in a £60 fine and a licence endorsed with three penalty points. It would also be assumed that drivers would lose their right to a cheap car insurance quote as a result of a speeding conviction. But not so, according to the latest research.
An investigation by the Guardian newspaper has found that although some motor insurance companies punish speeders by increasing their premiums, many, including Britain's biggest insurer, barely seem to care that their customers could be reckless or irresponsible road users.
Norwich Union, the country's largest car insurance provider, as well as several other firms, ignore the first speeding fine and the three penalty points when they work out the price of a premium. Even a second conviction hardly makes any difference to some company's quotations, although a third does make finding cheap car insurance somewhat tricky.
Some motor insurance companies see speeding convictions in the same light as many individuals, and deem the driver as simply unlucky to be caught instead of as a bad motorist.
A spokesman from Norwich Union Car Insurance, shows that insurance firms often also have the same attitudes to speed cameras as the majority of drivers, saying, "We recognise that with all the changes in recent years, it is easy to go over the speed limit once a year.
"Claims data does show that two or more speeding fines do show a higher claim ratio, but we are looking more at the type of conviction and the speed and not just the speed alone.
"The customer travelling at 80mph on the motorway will most likely be going with the flow of traffic. We might not look so kindly at someone doing 40mph near a school."