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What if I drive more miles than what I originally put on my insurance?
Advice
New to the UK. Got insurance from admiral for 4000 miles thinking that'd be the max I'd do....however now am planning a trip from London to Scotland and I'll very likely exceed 4k miles by the time this trip ends.
Is this OK, or should I let Admiral know and request an increase in miles? I assume I'll have to pay more for something like this?
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From admiral
“If you said you were going to do an annual mileage of up to 5,000 when you started your car insurance policy but find you're travelling a lot further than expected, you need to let us know immediately. Underestimating your annual mileage could invalidate your insurance in the event of a claim.”
Just tell them and then you’re in the clear. They could be petty and just fix the guys car you smashed into and then not fix yours because of exceeded mileage.
Just been downvoted for saying this exact thing lol
Depends what “a lot” is. If OP ends up doing under 5k, I personally wouldn’t worry. If they end up doing 6k+ I would, as compared to the original quote, it’s a significant increase.
But to be safe, worth telling them, premium won’t change much at all.
just tested this with some quotes with admiral - 1000 miles a year difference was a whole ... 35 pence more to my annual cost. I might splash out and add a whole pound worth of miles.
I wonder if the fact that you're the kind of person to go out of their way and tell admiral in the first place, greatly increases the likelihood you're the kind of person to drive sensibly
I agree with "just tell them" since it barely changes the premiums, but the reality is that they can't enforce it anyway.
The odometer shows how far the car has been driven and offers no indication how many of those miles had the policyholder behind the wheel, nor whether those miles were on the public highway.
With respect, you are completely wrong. Insurance companies can tell, and they can and will enforce it with additional premiums or reduced claim payouts if there has been a significant difference. (11 years working in IT for a major insurance company).
I'm curious - are there automated mileage checks on, for example, the MOT database?
I don't doubt the insurer may impose consequences, especially following a claim, but I suspect that most people concede because they don't want a (potentially costly) legal battle. Especially when their car is off the road.
Gonna necro this. You’re the one in the right. I’ve got 3rd party insurance on any otherwise insured car. So how are you going to tell how much of the mileage on my wife’s car was done by her?
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I used to process and review insurance claims. I have no way of telling what your mileage was prior so how can I tell if you’ve done more mileage or not? It’s just a way for us to guess the potential risk for the algorithm. People that ring up and pay more because they are doing more mileage are complete fools but I say let them be fools if they have the money to burn.
Not really surprising to be honest. Sometimes people make an issue of things when nothing would have happened. All it really does is benefit the company.
But they can on that front review the information reported to the Motor Insurers Bureau which they can and do for fraud reasons.
But someone with DOC insurance could have driven the car and they would never be able to prove that they didn't.
Which is why the insurance companies ask for the annual mileage the car will do, not the policy. The comparison sites tend to all ask how many miles you will do but the policies in my experience will all specifically specify the car.
Insurance companies and weaselling out of paying seems to be pretty much what they do.
Don't take this as gospel.
I wouldn't worry too much. The milage they ask you think you're gonna do when you take out the policy is approximate. They're not gonna bother if you're a few hundred, or possibly a thousand, miles out.
Also, my thinking is, they don't ask what the milage is when you take out the policy. It's possible they could probably find out easy enough now that the MOT system has been overhauled over the last few years, but I doubt they bother unless there's something about your claim/declared details that raises a flag.
On the other hand, it never hurts to disclose everything to your insurer. For a start, whenever I've declared a change that I thought would hit hard its either had no impact or has been negligible, and if the worst comes to the worst you've declared so they've no reason (or at least have less) wriggle room to fuck you over.
I used to process claims and review them we do not go that deep into it there is thousands that come through a day and the costs are just too high to do deep dives into every claim. It’s generally just processed unless the payout is a extremely large sum which it’s then sent to a separate team but I’m talking £50,000 plus payouts.
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Can you post a link to that thread? I’m not at all suggesting you’re making it up, I’m just curious on the details. I don’t see how they could justify cancelling the insurance when something like your address is quite easy to prove.
It’s annoying as the price does genuinely impact the amount of miles I do so I’ve always played around with it. If it made a huge difference (which it no longer seems to at my age) then I would simply take my other car/bike.
Don’t think I’m the guy the original comment was referring to, but exactly this situation happened to me and I posted about it. Hope you find it useful!
https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/comments/iqofau/update_car_insurance_policy_voidedcancelled/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I ended up renewing over the phone this year, and the woman at Hastings asked my mileage which I reckoned at 9k and she said that would go down as "4-10k" or something so presumably if someone said eg 6k they wouldn't have an issue as long as you stayed within that range.
You need to let them know ASAP, if you go over your mileage before policy finishes and you need to make a claim they just say the short answer being no
You don’t give the insurer your mileage at the beginning of the policy. So based on your statement it would go over based on what? How would they prove it went over. What’s the starting point? Historical data from previous MOTs means nothing and you cannot prove a pattern - COVID pandemic is an excellent example.
Some companies will ask for a photo of the odometer, the company I work for normally does a check on the vehicles last mot mileage, what quotes you've done phone and purchase date of the vehicle. This pandemic is an exception as mots were given a longer than 12 month life.
Unless you have a blackbox and they track your miles, you should be good cause as someone else said, it’s an estimate not a maximum
Does any one have any experience with the?!
I drove my car today to Liverpool to Canterbury to pick up my car and I think I did about 400 miles… I thought I would only be doing 2000 a year but from the drive I realised ide be doing more. ( I know it was silly of my to put such a low number but we tend to underestimate right?) I think I wanna change it to about 8000-9000)
Any experience would help :)
No way to know without ringing them and asking mate
You need to go on your admiral account and change your policy to have more miles
Let admiral know. You're simply breaching your contract T&C's.
You're right. I've had this exact situation. It absolutely could invalidate your agreement. As far as I know they still have to honour 3rd party but nothing more.
No you're not.
The question is "estimated" annual mileage. Going over that estimate is not a breach of the terms of insurance if the estimate was genuine and given in good faith which, on the face of it, is the case in this situation.
It's only a breach of the terms of the insurer can prove that your estimate was unreasonably or knowingly inaccurate.
They have your records from your MOTs so it's not very complicated to know what's your yearly mileage.
I have seen insurance not wanting to cover accident for less than that, I don't even know why I am getting downvoted or you're saying "no you're not".
I wouldn't play stupid games with your insurance,life's already complicated so I would let your insurance know that your situation has changed it will avoid you a lot of headache should something happen to you.
It's not about "playing stupid games" with insurance. Insurers ask for an estimate and they expect you to give an estimate that is reasonable and in good faith. For all intents and purposes, this sounds like it is the case.
If an insurer wants to use excessive annual mileage as a way to wriggle out of payment, they must do so following the "treating customers fairly" ethos within the regulatory framework. If the OP was giving an estimated mileage that, for example, wouldn't even cover his daily commute, then he might have some explaining to do. But the regulators view on an estimate is just that - that it is an estimate.
Previous MOT data is irrelevant. Past behaviour is not a reflection of current use.
Even then, an insurer would only be able to "wriggle out of payment" if they could prove that the OPs actual mileage would have been a risk that they wouldn't have been prepared to take on, which is unlikely. Even then, the best they could hope for is to deduct the additional premium that the OP would have paid in declaring higher mileage, which is usually minimal, from any payment.
Everyone will make their own opinion on this matter. But I would not go down that rabbit hole with an insurance. They have an army of lawyers knowing all the ins and outs of the contract they are writing etc…
As I said, for your peace of minds I would just give them a ring, doesn’t cost much to do this.
We’ve seen story on here where insurance did NOT want to pay out for less than that!
Regarding your MOT records it is relevant since it’s a data point showing the use at a given moment so they WILL use it (they did it with me hence why I am mentioning it, and it was Admiral too).
Anyway, not going to argue longer on such a small detail but we all know how insurance are funny about those & that’s how they make money by NOT paying.
Read your T&C’s and you will see you Must let them know (at least this was in my policy).
The "estimated" part only means that your estimate will inform the quote, not what you actually will do. It is a clear breach of terms if it is in your terms to inform them if you go over it (which it is, I have checked mine).
Nuthing will happen its fine, i had a mate that said he was going to do 8k but ended up doing around 17k and nuthing happend.
They have no way of finding out how many you have done so dont wory about it.
They dont know what the car started the policy on and they wont know how much its gone up by.
They do if you have an accident. They can easily check MOT records.
but if you get MOTed 6 months after you start your insurance, then there's no way to know what mile you started the insurance at - as long as you don't go over your mileage between that MOT and the end of your term, it could have all been mileage accrued in the year prior
If you get in to a prang, and its your fault, the insurer will notice the discrepancy between the miles you said and what you've done. They base it off the inspection of the car against the last MOT mileage.
That said, they give you an opportunity to make that mileage mistake right. So it's not too bad. But it's just better to not have that aggravation in the first place.
It is quite clearly worded in my policy that if you do not inform them then you will not be insured for the additional miles.