Insurance and Mileage

[bad company]

I just renewed the insurance on my 2020 BMW. Due to lockdown I only did 7000 miles in the first year so on renewal I paid for 10K rather than my usual 12K miles.

My question is in the forthcoming insurance year how will they know how many miles I’ve covered? They didn’t ask for an odometer reading and as the car’s only 1 year old there’s no MOT record.

[supacool1]

They won't unless you have you have an accident...

[Saleen836]

Someone will confirm or deny but when insurance ask you for annual mileage and you tell them (in your instance) 10k they take it as a guestimate,your premium wont be affected by the fact you told them 12k the year before,mileage only makes a difference AFAIK to the premium when you drop to to a couple of K's a year,they can check this online via the MOT history check

[bad company]

Saleen836 said:

Someone will confirm or deny but when insurance ask you for annual mileage and you tell them (in your instance) 10k they take it as a guestimate,your premium wont be affected by the fact you told them 12k the year before,mileage only makes a difference AFAIK to the premium when you drop to to a couple of K's a year,they can check this online via the MOT history check

My normal mileage is 10-11K, as I said this year I only managed 7K due to lockdown. I’ve gone for 10 next year but as I see it I can also use some from the previous year as nobody knows the odometer reading.

[blueovercream]

I asked an insurer this before and can confirm that in the event of a claim, they check the mileage from the vehicle’s MOT records.

[Mark8815]

Never thought of this to be honest, last year I put 8000 miles, did 1000 miles, same again this year (8000) but so far I bet I haven’t done 500 miles.... will this screw me over?

[Uncle Meat]

Last years and this years insurance companies have told me that if I do less than I stated I would, they would give me a small refund (last years was only about £25, roughly 5%).

[W201_190e]

I have only been asked when insuring under a classic policy. But I always insure for what I think I'm going to do.

[bad company]

blueovercream said:

I asked an insurer this before and can confirm that in the event of a claim, they check the mileage from the vehicle’s MOT records.

That’s the obvious answer but the car’s just coming up to a year old so there’s no MOT record.

[Mr Tidy]

I insured my 2005 E90 BMW 330i with Churchill based on 7,000 miles a year.

They invited me to tell them how lockdown had affected my mileage, and I got a wonderful refund of £11.20!

[nipsips]

Mileage is an estimate - you will not be penalised for going over on mileage.

As stated above it’s impossible for insurers to check the mileage under 3 years old on the MOT record because it doesn’t exist, and also it’s impossible to check what mileage has been covered under this policy and whether another driver has been driving the car under their own DOC extension.

I would argue unless there’s something glaringly obviously wrong with your claim, no one would even question it? For example - living in Cornwall, insured for 1000 miles and accident happens in Scotland.

[NWTony]

I do limited mileage on my insurance and they ask for the odometer reading at renewal.

[QBee]

Be careful with classic policies that have restricted mileage.
They do require an odometer reading at the start of the year, and as soon as you pass the agreed mileage your policy needs to be renewed.

[Neddy Sea Goon]

I increased the mileage on my work van from 12000 to 15000 while I was on the phone querying the premium rise (was more than 10%), premium ended up going down lower than the year before just for increasing the mileage

I did then ask her to put down a million miles so they'd have to pay me, but she just laughed

[EddieFelson]

MOT mileage is just how many miles the car has travelled over the year.

It’s not how many YOU have driven it under YOUR policy.

[bad company]

QBee said:

Be careful with classic policies that have restricted mileage.
They do require an odometer reading at the start of the year, and as soon as you pass the agreed mileage your policy needs to be renewed.

I just renewed the classic policy on my TVR. They didn’t ask for the odometer reading but the mileage at MOT is public information so they’d know if I was doing more than the 5000 miles I pay for. It was less than 2000 last year.

As stated earlier I’ve changed from paying for 12,000 to 10,000 miles in my BMW. They haven’t asked for the odometer reading on that policy either.

[Aiminghigh123]

Some do check at renewal. Couple of years ago I insured for 15k miles and I did 27k miles. At renewal I spoke to them and they asked “if I’m sure I want to keep mileage at 15k? If you go over this by a substantial amount blah blah blah” so they had clearly checked. As it turns out it added about £10 to increase mileage to 30k.

When I renewed after losing job last year told them to reduce my mileage to 6k and it made no difference to the saving.