Drivers pay more for insurance as ‘pointless’ EU rules remain

MOTORISTS face paying £50 more a year on car insurance because of the Government’s failure to scrap “pointless” EU regulations, industry leaders and MPS have warned.

Boris Johnson is under mounting pressure to scrap the rules, which require insurers to cover accidents involving lawnmowers and quad bikes, in turn forcing premiums up.

Despite pledging to change the law, ministers have been accused of “dragging their feet” by Tory MPS, while the insurance industry has launched a legal action against the Government.

The row centres on the EU Motor Insurance Directive and the European Court of Justice, which ruled in 2014 that the compulsory motor insurance requirement must be extended to include accidents involving additional uninsured vehicles on public roads.

It also extended the requirement to private land, such as farms, gardens and motorsport events, with golf buggies, lawnmowers, quad bikes, e-scooters, agricultural machinery and even classic vehicles in museums now in scope.

The judgment was made after a Slovenian farmer, Damijan Vnuk, sued after insurers refused to pay out when he was knocked off his ladder on a farm by a reversing tractor in 2007.

A subsequent ruling in 2019 by the UK Court of Appeal means that the Motor Insurers Bureau, the British body responsible for compensating victims of uninsured drivers, must now compensate for accidents of this type. However, this has added millions of uninsured vehicles to the MIB’S liabilities, the costs of which are passed on to motorists through their insurance bills.

The Government has itself estimated a £50-a-year increase in insurance costs.

But despite repeatedly pledging to change the law, the insurance industry says ministers have failed to act, despite the EU amending its laws, describing them as an “absurd overregulation”.

The delay also appears to be at odds with the work of Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, who is undertaking a review to repeal retained EU law.

The MIB and insurers have launched a judicial review challenge and are also suing for financial losses brought about by the Government’s failure to act.

The former Cabinet ministers Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers have written to ministers to press for a change in the law. A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We are committed to bringing forward the necessary legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.”