Mobile phone offences impact on insurance

If the thought of putting lives at risk is not enough to make you stop using your hand-held mobile phone whilst driving, then maybe the thought that it could hit you in the pocket will do the trick.

It is not just the £60 fixed penalty that you will have to fork out for. Insurance companies, like the police, take a dim view of this offence and in a recent piece of research carried out by the AA, it was found that of the eight insurers surveyed, seven would increase the premiums of an offender by between 4.2% and 8.1%, whilst one would go as far as refusing to cover them altogether. In terms of hard cash this means an increase of around £40 a year on average, or £120 over the three year period of the offence.

Worse news is in store though should the police decide to charge you with careless driving. In this situation half of the eight insurers would refuse cover whilst the other four would increase the premiums by up to 50%.

It is now standard practice for the police to check mobile records when an accident happens so don’t think that your call will go unnoticed. Even if you are convinced that the phone was not a contributory factor to the accident, it will be hard work convincing anyone else that this was the case. According to ROSPA, users of mobiles at the wheel are four times more likely to crash, regardless of the fact that the phone may be a hands-free type.