Drink drivers should be caned on insurance

[JazzyBBG]

So my brother in law who I'm not a fan of has a pretty serious drink driving conviction. Added to this he's I suspect at least emotionally abusive to my sister and generally pretty vile. Also permanently pleads poverty as does my DS.

Saw him yesterday in a 3 year old BMW 5 series M sport. I'm told this is his new car. WTAF? How on earth would any insurance company insure him? And if they did Surely the premium should be extortionate??? I'm paying £700 on a similar spec car largely high due to my DH having an accident a few years ago. This man claims he can't afford childcare after school but he can afford this?

He has to drive for his job so he will have to supply evidence of insurance to his company so he is insured, whether he told them the truth is a different matter. And no it's not a company car he gets a small car allowance like £100 a month.

I just think insurers should not make it so easy for people with a DD conviction to have access to such high powered cars. My insurance goes up every year with me having 20 years no claims! Not sure if I'm AIBU or just wanting to vent. I'm not wrong??

@FierceMother 3 years old. Still worth a fair bit. Not your average mondeo.

Insurance is largely about the cost of the vehicle and how much it would be to fix or replace

Quite the opposite in fact, it’s largely not much to do with the value of the car but the potential for third party claims. Doesn’t matter if your car is worth £200 or £20,000, both are nothing compared to a third party claim of £5million if you badly injure someone.

I find it hard to believe that someone who has a job which only pays a £100 per month car allowance and has to drive for work can afford to buy a car which is both £35k minimum for a 3 year old one and has the incredible thirst of an M5. Let’s say he does 800 work miles per week that’ll use £300-350 in fuel. He might get 15p/mile if given a car allowance so will be paying £200/month out of his own pocket. The figures just don’t make much sense, add in other running costs and things like brakes all round on an M5 will cost the best part of £2k. I might be completely wide of the mark or course.

www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-samsung&source=android-browser&q=drink+driving+endorsements
drink driving stays on licence for 11 years, most likely not disclosing to insurance. If he gets pulled by police they'll most likely think same as you and check it furthur

Sorry, I meant 800 miles per MONTH for work!

How long ago was his conviction? You don't have to declare after 5yrs for insurance quotes. Conviction won't be spent though for 11yrs.

I'm paying £700 on a similar spec car largely high due to my DH having an accident a few years ago.

I don't think you can complain about the insurance industry undercharging him, when your husband has had to claim off insurance and has cost them money, and the drink driver hasn't.

He hasn't claimed off his insurance, he probably has max bonus, that could be up to 70%. So even if they added £500 to his base premium, that's only an extra £150 on his actual premium that he pays.

Insurance is a business, not a social engineering arm of the government. If people who drink drive shouldn't have access to powerful cars that should be a restriction the courts can place on them. Insurance companies need to be able to get on the job of assessing risk and insuring people.

Quite right. It's the job of government to decide would can drive what, and at what age, and at what speed, and who should be banned, and for how long. Insurance companies are there to asses risk, sell insurance and make money. It's not their job to make moral decisions on who should drive and who shouldn't, based on the whim of a few pearl clutchers on MN. If you feel that strongly about it, write to your MP.

@kalopali yes as I said he always claims poverty. The how he affords the car in the first place is a whole other debate I can't bring myself to think about.

@FierceMother actually the biggest concern of motor underwriters isn't the value of the vehicle but the liklihood of the driver hitting someone. Claims for the former might be at most £100,000 claims for the latter could easily be more than £1m. (I know and work with some very good motor underwiters so have this on good authority).

Could not agree more that drink drivers should be penailsed and again they are (at least if they come anywhere near my colleagues desk and they are not unusual in their approach).

@Lifecraft his DD incident resulted in an insurance claim of at least £50k substantially more than what my DH was involved in, i don't know the values of the other vehicles involved so it could be many times more, just that he was in a work vehicle worth £50k. He no longer has that job unsurprisingly and can no longer work in industry he was in as a result.

"it was pretty horrendous...No one died but that was more luck than judgement and multiple vehicles involved."

So there was a crash (with injuries?) and an insurance claim with him at fault? I would expect that to have a bigger impact on his insurance rate than the DD tbh.

Also, it's worth bearing in mind that some insurers don't raise premiums until the next policy review. So he may have lower premiums now, but they will shoot up at the end of this period. Not sure if this applies as I thought a new car would trigger a policy review, but can't recall for certain.

Regardless of the quibbling over whether his insurance premiums should be higher - he does sound like an unpleasant git.

Maybe it is very high? Mine was £1,200 as a new driver and £1,000 after 3 years driving and no accidents or convictions.

People just pay

I used to work for a car insurance company and I would often deal with drink driving convictions and claim. I’m zero tolerance and would prefer a lifetime ban.
However since a lifetime ban isn’t an option in most cases I’m not sure why the type of car is relevant. A drunk driver behind the wheel of Aston Martin DB9 is no less dangerous than a drunk driver behind the wheel of a Fiat panda.

YANBU also people who kill on the road should have extortionate insurance imo, sickening that someone can have an accident, kill multiple people, get off relatively Scott free and be on the road again within a year or two like nothing happened, fk that, it should be thousands to get insured after killing someone on the road.

BoomBoomsCousin, couldn't agree more, it would also be nice if drunk drivers had to pay more at the supermarket but private organisations already play too great a part in the justice system.

A drunk driver behind the wheel of Aston Martin DB9 is no less dangerous than a drunk driver behind the wheel of a Fiat panda.

Surely he's more dangerous. Drunk drivers are selfish twats who make bad decisions. Either of them could have an accident, but the driver in the Aston is likely to be going faster and the accident will be bigger.

That's why Astons cost more to insure that Pandas, if all other factors are equal. '

A friend of mine paid circa £5k for his first year back after a DD on a BMW 6 series and that was 10 years ago, no accidents etc just the DD. I reckon that the total cost of an M5 in his situation including paying for the car, insurance, fuel etc will be about £20k per year. Only you can gauge how feasible that is, does he earn £100k or £20k for example?

@kalopali at a guess I'd say £30k tops.
Been with my friend today who is a police office DI and knows of him, basically said she'd bet her life he's not insured. He's a peach.

*officer