Nigel Lombard of Risca is concerned about uninsured drivers in Leominster (From Hereford Times)

Nigel Lombard of Risca is concerned about uninsured drivers in Leominster

12:20pm Saturday 13th March 2010 in

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I’M sure I was not alone in being alarmed at your recent story reporting the numbers of uninsured drivers in Leominster. However, sadly, I’m not surprised. I think Martin Rover-Parkes from the Herefordshire Advanced Motoring Group hit the nail on the head when he said that many young drivers feel they can’t afford the insurance on top of all the other costs of getting on the road.

But purely looking at cost is in my mind, the wrong emphasis. I’ve been in the motor insurance business for over 15 years and I’ve been constantly pushing for people to understand the bigger picture. The reason why insurance for young drivers is so expensive is because they are far more likely to be involved in a serious accident. A sobering one in four people dying in road traffic accidents are aged between 17 and 25. And the data goes as far as telling us that of fatalities on the road in this age group, one in three occurs between the hours of 11pm and 5am.

What that means is, if you can change behaviour to reduce these risks, insurance can be affordable, but crucially, lives can be saved. I’ve recently been involved with developing i-kube, a type of insurance which discounts insurance by up to 40% for young drivers, because it encourages them not to use their cars between the ‘red hours’ 11pm and 5am. They can if they have to, but early indications show that over 80% of our policyholders don’t drive at all between these hours.

It’s not acceptable for us to be seeing figures like ‘one in eight young men in Leominster have a conviction for driving uninsured’, but if we are to do anything about this, we need as much ‘carrot as stick’. I’d like to see more innovation from the insurance industry to encourage safe, legal driving from everyone on the roads, especially our young people.