Well, hopefully, if you are ever unfortunate enough to be taken out by a car and suffer a permanent brain injury requiring 24 hour care the driver will have been insured, so that you get that care, and your wife and children ( if you have them) still have a roof over their heads and food to eat!

Insurance is based on probability and driving in a foreign country you are more likely to have an accident, so the premiums are more. The market in the UK is also highly competitive so premiums are at a competitive level. It may be expensive, but you need to blame the insurance fraudsters, the scammers, the uninsured and the criminals for that.

Personally I blame the claim culture and the complicity of certain members of the legal profession in it, that coupled with governments that have never introduced legislation to properly prosecute people for failed, fraudulent claims.

The number of claims and the cost of claims would remain the same if the vehicle was insured, not the driver but insurance would instantly become truly competitive because all the 'qualifying questions' would be removed, This point is proven in countries that more or less follow this system.
If there is no 'rip off' factor, then why are there so few actual underwriters of the policies? Furthermore, why is the cost of fully comp often the same or less than that of 3rd party only?
Profits are massive, insurance exists to make profits, ably assisted by the powers that be. That proviso applies to all types of insurance be it vehicle, medical etc.

As regards the permanent brain injury reference, or to be crude,the 'head on a stick scenario' and such like, I would prefer no treatment at all in such a situation and the option of assisted suicide if required, but thats a debate for another day!

There may well be a subculture of insurance scammers, fraudsters and criminals in the UK but from my recent experience there's quite a few of them operating within the insurance world.

Back in February an elderly couple in a small hatchback drove into the back of my Land Rover while we were stationary at traffic lights. The tow bar on the LR took the impact and our damage was minimal - broken rear light lens, dislodged piece of trim and slight bend in one bumper mounting bracket. Nobody was hurt in any way at all but the damage to the hatchback was severe so it had to go through their insurance company.

Since then I must have had thirty "ambulance chasing" legal companies ring me trying to convince me that we really were hurt and we ought to let them sue on our behalf. Some of them were persistant and persuasive and I suspect they would convince many people to "give it a go". Had I agreed I wonder about both the moral and legal aspects of this. To get a "result" someone at some point would have to have lied. It would have been dressed up in ambiguity, probability and uncertainty but at its core it would have been fraudulent.

I thought I'd fix the damage to the LR myself - the part were (via ebay) under £20 and about an hour's work, but no, the elderly couple's insurance company insisted they do it so I let them. A local body shop took the car away and a rental Toyota 4x4 turned up for us to use. Two weeks later it was all done - just under £3000 for the repairs + whatever the hire car cost. The bodyshop guy said they have to replace everything with even the slightest mark "just in case" otherwise people complain. The car rental people told me the insurance companies get a huge discount but only if they put a certain volume of rentals their way. The whole thing is like a juggernaut- once it gets rolling it's unstopable. Everybody wants their cut and what is fair and reasonable (to my eye anyway) seems to go out the window.

I think the only wholy honest person person I met in this saga was the elderly lady driver who admitted her foot had slipped off the brake pedal. Just about everyone else had some sort of angle they were pushing. Whether this is a "gravy train" or the only way to keep all of the necessary sub contractors viable may depend on your political persuasion but it's the premiums that are paying for it.

Its a gravy train, plain and simple. Some years ago my parked car was clipped by a school bus in the local village. Because the driver knew me and recognised my car he left a note under the wiper.

The total damage was a dented wing, a tiny scrape on the bonnet corner and a broken indicator. The car was a rather elderly Cavalier with plenty of other dents. The bus driver persuaded me to make a claim because it was easier for him as he had to log the accident, and told me where to take the car for quote.

The result? About 1000 euro! 20 quid for a pattern wing, 50 to spray it, 10 for the indicator and about 900 for labour?????

Its madness, plain and simple. But we all pay through the nose for it.

Apologies to Moggy, but defending the mega corporations that underwrite insurance in any way in lunacy.

As for the original poster, make sure when you do get a quote (if you choose the total honesty approach!) to say you can get in for less elsewhere as most insurers will then drop the price again to get your business, there is usually a haggle factor built it, to allow them to cream a bit more as the majority of people are too embarrassed or shy to do this.

Oh,by the way, whats the most profitable market for car/motor insurance???
Guess what, it young male drivers under 25..... Funny that its also the most expensive too .....

In answer to the post enquiring about bike / car seizure , if your licence or insurance is invalid then im afraid its on the back of the truck . to get it back YOU must have an insurance policy in force , or its disposed of within 28 days . you also get to pay the removal costs , fine and storage costs too .
If you happen to come thru London then you are taking your bike s life in your hands as there are often lots of road checks , they always have a number of transporters parked up and they can fill them up within minutes as there are so many people doing it ................... lots are uk nationals , lots are foreign drivers who think they can flout the rules too .
On another point , if you sell your bike for gods sake don't leave the policy running to try and get another years no claims , cos if the new owner doesn't take out a policy and then hits something , you are in the sxxt financially as the insurance company will come after your assets big time to recoup their loss - def not funny !!!!

And this is where strange people like myself have the problem Chris. That's simply a licence to print money for the transporters, storage facilities and insurers. Aside from that, a persons property (the insurance company/government/police didn't buy the car/bike) has been forcibly taken from them and can only be returned when they have crossed the correct palms with silver.
By all means, prosecute people if they don't have insurance, send them to jail even. But its a sad day when it turns into an excuse for state sponsored larceny and is backed up by the boys in blue.
Driving without tax or insurance doesn't endanger anybodies life, its solely a financial matter for the state. Perhaps if it wasn't such a jolly old rip off operation from the get go then there wouldn't be so many uninsured vehicles??
But then its a vicious cycle, if it was cheaper the profits would drop and there would be less seizures to make etc,etc.

As anybody that has done a lot of driving like myself can tell you there are 3 things on the road that kill
(1) Speed
(2) Tiredness/Inattention
(3) Plain bad driving

Pieces of paper don't save lives, yet we very rarely hear (or never) about cars/bikes being seized on the spot for any of the above. Its always for money collecting purposes (pieces of paper) sometimes for the government (tax, laundering) other times for the insurance companies.

I for one think that is a very sad state of affairs. The last time I was in the UK I was undertaken on the M62 by a lunatic, if caught he gets a small fine and a few points. Big deal, he gets it in the post, pays and forgets yet he could easily have caused a major accident.

But if someone else doesn't tax their car for a couple of months/days/weeks their car gets seized, they get left at the side of the road and the whole episode costs them a fortune.

As always the whole system favors the rich and is merrily enforced by the police.

The ambulance chasing is a big issue and needs sorting out. There was a very good documentary the box a couple of weeks ago about an insurance scam causing deliberate accidents then over claiming for them. One of the biggest scams involved a claims handling firm that had garages, solicitors etc in their pocket. They reckon they could have made at least 8million. Individuals had put in hundreds of claims in the same name, I was astonished the industry had not picked up repeated claims like this, its real slack.

Often when the police stop an uninsured vehicle there are many other things they find. It may have been stopped originally because it was being driven dangerously, that's often why the driver hasn't got insurance, they can't afford it because of their driving history. The vehicle may be badly maintained ( if they can't afford insurance maybe they can't afford repairs). They may find interesting substances on board, the people on board may be of interest, banned from driving etc etc etc

Personally, having had my car written off by an uninsured driver I think they should all be strung up!!

What's the point of insuring the car rather than the driver? Its the driver that causes the accident. Sorry, but that's a ridiculous idea. Why should I be charged the same for driving the same car as some kid with no experience and no extra training when I haven't had an at fault accident in nearly 30 years and have passed 5 different driving tests?

Oh, and speed is not a major cause of accidents. I'm surprised your so gullible to believe the propaganda about that given your cynicism about other stuff! Its the principal factor in just 4% of accidents, that's the governments own figures, but its easy for them to pin it on, requires little effort, makes it look like their doing something and doesn't really cost anything, in fact, it even raises a bit of money. In the 10 years after speed cameras were introduced the death rate on the UK's roads changed barely at all, indeed some years it was higher than before cameras were introduced. Recent reductions in the death rate are down to improvements in car design over the last 10 years filtering through.

If speed caused accidents my driving history would be littered with at fault accidents! Human error causes accidents end of.

I think in general inattention and poor driving causes more accidents personally . Speed , when used stupidly , is also a problem too .
As for enforcing no insurance , i have no issues with that at all . If you are ever hit by an uninsured driver and god forbid injured or your vehicle , which may be on HP , is written off , then you are in a world of financial hurt - simple as that .
While no one likes having to pay insurance , me included , if something happens and you dont have it , i think you get my drift .
This is getting a very long thread by the way

like I said, human error

it is the only causative factor in 99.99% of accidents!