Is my car insured?

Ever asked yourself ‘is my car insured’? Well, we have the answer.

As a driver, it’s your legal responsibility to ensure you’re covered at all time. Driving without insurance is an offence that can land you in hot water.

For your peace of mind and the safety of fellow drivers, it’s worth checking if you’re insured to drive your car.

How do I find out if I’m insured?

The quickest way to check if your car’s insured is to run its registration number through the Motor Insurer’s Database (MID). The service holds insurance information of all vehicles insured in the UK.

This free search will tell you whether the car is insured and will confirm the make and model. However, if you want to find out the insurer’s name or any other policy details, you’ll have to pay £4.

You can also check your bank or credit card statements for payments to an insurance provider. Then you can try to contact them for more information.

You can also look through all your emails as you may have received confirmation from the insurer.

What if my car is uninsured?

If you get caught driving uninsured on any public road, you could be fined £300 and have six penalty points. And if your case is taken to court, you could be disqualified from driving, and face an unlimited fine.

If your car is just parked in your garage gathering dust, you still have to pay for insurance. The Continuous Insurance Enforcement legislation states that all drivers are required by law to have their car insured at all times.

The only way around this is to legally declare your car off the road with the DVLA. You do this with a Statutory Off-Road Notification (SORN).

If you’re uninsured and haven’t made a SORN, you could still face a penalty - even if your car isn’t being used.

Saving money on a new car insurance policy

We monitor car insurance prices so you can see when prices go up and down. If it turns out that you need to buy a new policy, you can do a few things to save money.

Here’s what the price depends on and what you can do about it:

• What car you drive – smaller cars tend to be cheaper to insure.

• What security you have – better security lowers your premium.

• Who owns and drives your car - quotes can be higher if the owner isn’t the same as the registered keeper.

• How you use your car - cars that only have social, domestic and pleasure-related uses tend to have lower premiums.

• The type of cover you choose – third-party-only cover is a good budget policy but you’ll have to pay to repair your car yourself.

To drive the cost down you can also increase your voluntary excess, as this will lower your premiums.