Odurinde Finance & Business Blog

Car Insurance

There are over 30 million registered cars on UK roads. The majority of them have safe drivers behind the wheel, and in the UK the roads and motorways are in good condition. However with UK drivers spending long hours on the road there are inevitably tens of thousands of car accidents that are reported on a yearly basis, and therefore car insurance is essential to have if you own a car or even just drive.

All cars needs to be insured to be legally allowed on the road in the UK (drivers will not be able to drive their cars without car insurance in Britain). Policies generally will last for one year, giving policy holders plenty of opportunity to find a better deal, although the vast majority of policy holders will usually continue with their existing policies for ease of management.

Some roads in particular attract more accidents than others, and therefore may place some drivers in “higher risk” areas – thus affecting their policy prices. The highest concentration of UK road accidents are found on the A682 Lancashire and North Yorkshire border; the A54 from Congleton to Buxton; the A59 from Skipton to Harrogate in North Yorkshire; the A53 from Leek to Buxton on the Staffordshire and Derbyshire border. Drivers on these roads are statistically more likely to encounter an accident, and insurance policies will often take this into account.

There may be drivers who take out cheaper car insurance only to find out it offers inadequate cover when making a claim, by which time it is too late. It is important to remember that the cheapest car insurance policy may not necessarily be the best one, and therefore all drivers should make sure they shop around for the best car insurance quote available on the market.

The main types of car insurance in the UK are: Third Party Only, Third Party Fire & Theft and Fully Comprehensive. Third Party Only is the minimum legal requirement of car insurance in the United Kingdom, providing cover against costs incurred by the third party in the accident in the event of an accident that the policy holder was at fault for. Third Party Fire & Theft provides all the cover offered by Third Party Only, but with the added benefit of cover against fire and theft. Fully Comprehensive (often called simply Fully Comp) is the most comprehensive of the three types of car insurance available and includes protection against loss or damage caused by fire, theft or attempted theft, accidental damage and liability cover if someone else is hurt. Fully Comp also provides the excellent benefits of a new car replacement and accident recovery.

Insurers may offer car insurance based on certain age groups or based on gender (some companies offer separate car insurance policies for women). For example ‘over 50s car insurance’ is designed for drivers aged over 50 – as the insurer may view the older group as safer drivers because of their driving experience and therefore will offer car insurance with a cheaper premium. Car insurance is also offered by some companies for teenage drivers, though perhaps unsurprisingly this group is usually more expensive to insure than experienced drivers.