Why happens if your unexpectedly go over the annual mileage specified in your insurance policy that you estimated when you took out the policy?

Obviously, specifying 3000 miles a year to get a low quote and then driving 50K miles would be ridiculous and you'd deservedly get your claim bounced, but is there a tolerance , where if you're a over the specified mileage by a little, you don't get your insurance voided?

Or is it a hard limit (if you specified an annual mileage when you took out the quote), and if you can be shown to have exceeded it, then you've broken the terms of your policy and it's voided?

 

Beyond that, is this a big problem for insurers? Do a lot of people lie about only driving small mileages to get cheap insurance, only to drive many more miles than they said they would?

I have had limited mileage policies on the MX5 for ages...   There is usually a tolerance of a few hundred mes but some insurers also look at the average over the past few years so if your under one year you can go over the next. 

 

They sometimes ask re odometer mileage but also often look at MOT records

Edited 20 July, 202420 Jul by skomaz

If it's a mileage estimate then AFAIK there's no problem (provided it's not a silly amount over), but if it's specifically a limited mileage policy then there's often an excess mileage charge.

Restricted/limited mileage on "classic" insurance policies are different to the usual standard car policies for standard usual policies with these the estimated mileage is more of an estimate and different policies may have different bands anyway.  Provided you don't go too far over and perhaps, if required, adjust the figure at your next insurance renewal it should be fine, obviously only your provider can tell you for sure (and they might get things wrong if you speak to the wrong person in the company).  You are supposed to notify the insurance company of any changes in use (and any accidents even if you are not going to claim on them) but reasonableness should apply.

 

"Classic" insurance polices are a different kettle of fish, I had 30+ years of those including business use (no problem what so ever) both limited mileage (as at times I had more than one "classic" in daily use) and much more usually unlimited mileage, the coverage and costs would have those with standard policies in tears, I found the few times I had limited milage (6k-miles a year) it was very restrictive but other times when I had unlimited mileage I could have had limited mileage.  The last policy I had for about 12 years had unlimited mileage as a no-cost option anyway.

 

4 hours ago, skomaz said:

I have had limited mileage policies on the MX5 for ages...   There is usually a tolerance of a few hundred mes but some insurers also look at the average over the past few years so if your under one year you can go over the next. 

 

They sometimes ask re odometer mileage but also often look at MOT records

It was looking at my MOT records that alerted me to the problem.

Being weird, I used linear interpolation (using sensible data points) to work out what my expected mileage will be by the time by insurance is up for renewal, and found I'd be 300 miles over my mileage limit for the year.

I contacted my insurance company and for a couple of quid, they bumped up my mileage from 5K to 6K this year, so problem solved.

4 hours ago, PetrolDave said:

If it's a mileage estimate then AFAIK there's no problem (provided it's not a silly amount over), but if it's specifically a limited mileage policy then there's often an excess mileage charge.

Much money is lost and made in vague definitions, such as "reasonable" and "fair use".

Insurance companies will feel that "reasonable" is anything that they consider is reasonable.

Mine says this now. Not sure what would be a silly amount over that, but I suspect anything over 6500 miles would void the insurance.