Insurance premiums to go up due to new law

04/02/2013

And the long and short of it all is that this likely to see many motorists pay bigger premiums - obviously

The measure, which is being announced by Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar today, means insurers will soon have access to information telling them for which of the 13 serious offences points have been imposed. Up until now, when insurers accessed the Department of Transport’s national vehicle driver file, they could only verify the number of points a driver had.

But new visibility will be phased in over the coming months and insurers can soon see why the driver was punished.

“This is about road safety, and rewarding motorists for safe behaviour,” Mr Varadkar says. However, there is a very, very thin line between rewarding motorists with few or no penalty points and penalising those at the other end of the scale.

While there is no mention in any of today’s media reports of premiums coming down, drivers with points for drink driving, speeding, holding a mobile phone, failing to wear a seatbelt and nine other offences can expect to see their premiums rise.

All of which raises a very obvious question: what did insurance companies think the points were being awarded for in the first place?