How do I check my car insurance?

Once you’ve crossed out car insurance on your list of things to do, it can be all too easy to forget about it – especially these days when auto-renewals are so effortless.

And if you’re a frequent provider switcher, which random company found in the depths of a comparison website are you with this year?

So, when that sinking feeling strikes, how do you go about checking if your car insurance is all in order?

Luckily, it’s actually very easy to do online, and you don’t need any documents, insurance certificates or policy numbers to do it.

How can I check if my car is insured?

The number one thing to do is head to the same place insurance companies and the police go – the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB).

There is a public area at askmid.com that all drivers can use, free of charge, to get an instant answer. It’s a simple check of the Motor Insurers Database (MID), where you just need your car’s registration number. Try it now.

When you check if your car is insured with the MID tool, you get a straight yes or no answer. So, you can find out if you are covered now, but it can’t tell you anything about your policy or when it will expire.

How can I find out when my car insurance expires?

If you’ve lost the details of your renewal date or misplaced your policy, there are a few places you could start your search.

• Check your emails. Search car insurance and see if there are any ‘transactional’ rather than marketing emails in there. Might you have flagged or saved your policy confirmation email somewhere?
• When’s your MOT or tax due? You have to be quite lucky not to be paying for all three at once, usually all tied into the time of year you bought your car. The date of your tax or MOT might help you tie down your insurance date too. With just your reg number, you can find your MOT and tax dates on the government website.
• Scroll through your bank statements. Did you pay in one lump sum or do you pay monthly? Have a check of your credit card statement too.
• Is it time to sort out that pile of paperwork? Although most things are done online and by email now, you may still have a graveyard of past renewal notices, policy schedules and confirmations. Check your filing, folders and wherever your life admin resides – and flick through your calendar too!
• Saga customer? If you’ve had a quote from Saga Car Insurance, you might have a record of it online at your MySaga account. Log in to check.

What can I do if I’ve lost my car insurance details?

You can request all the data held about you and your car from the MID by submitting a data access request. It’s free and will give you a history of your car insurance for the last seven years.

You can do it online or you can download this form to do it by post.

What happens if my car isn’t insured?

The reason it’s so important to be on top of your car insurance and its expiry date is the fact that being without it is so serious. Without car insurance, you’re leaving yourself and, crucially, other people unprotected and unable to put things right. No one can afford to be without it.

The only legal reason for having an uninsured car is when it’s not parked or driven on a public highway and registered with the DVLA through a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN).

You can see how vital car insurance is from the severe penalties that exist if you’re found without it.

And there are two ways this could happen.

By letter…

The DVLA constantly checks its data about taxed and MOT-ed vehicles with the national insurance database. When an uninsured vehicle is detected, the owner will get an insurance advisory letter. This gives you a chance to sort out cover immediately, but if not, the punishment is threefold: a £100 penalty notice, seizure of the car and a prosecution that comes with a fine up to £1,000.

Police stop…

The police rely on the MID to check car insurance. If you’re pulled over for anything, such as a broken light, they’ll run your reg through the database. There can also be campaigns, much like checking for drunk drivers at Christmas, where passing cars run through plate recognition cameras to spot uninsured cars.

People who drive uninsured face a number of penalties when they’re caught by the police.

The car will be confiscated, six points gets added to the driver’s licence, there’s a £300 fixed penalty and a charge to reclaim the car. And that’s without the case going to court.

This all goes to show that it’s essential you don’t let your car insurance run out. Why not take a quick look now to see if you know when yours is due?