Why has our insurance gone up to over £5000 after disclosing a historic traffic offence?

Over the weekend my wife and I were given an insurance quote of £1525 on a new car we were thinking of buying. I'd forgotten that she had three points on her licence (code TS10) from when she went through a red light, her only offence in thirty years of motoring, so I called back to disclose this and ask for a re-quote. I expected the premium to go up but was staggered when told it would now be £5500. And "no, it isn't a mistake," I was told very firmly. Is this sort of increase normal?

Asked on 8 June 2013 by NB, Manchester

Answered by Honest John

No. And it's a very good reason to use a decent broker such as www.primoplc.com/. Remember, most 'price comparison sites' are not what they say they are. They are really just brokers working on simplified quoting criteria with a fixed panel of underwriters. The standard broker commission of 10 per cent seems to have gone out of the window, so you could find yourself paying the broker £500 for insurance for which the underwriter charges £250.

Tags: insurance red lights

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