THE 60-SECOND GUIDE TO... HOW BAD DRIVING AFFECTS INSURANCE BILLS

KEEP your driving record as clean as you can — penalty points or driving convictions will push up the cost of your car insurance and make it harder for you to get a quote. Insurers typically start to load your car insurance premium if you have two or more penalty points.

For example, Liberty Insurance will increase your premium by 10pc if you have two or three penalty points; and by 20pc if you have four penalty points.

Aviva gives a 27pc discount to customers with no penalty points but that falls to 12pc after two penalty points — and is removed altogether after four penalty points.

“If there are two drivers on the policy, and both have two penalty points, the discount is removed in total,” said an Aviva spokeswoman.

The extent to which your premium gets loaded typically increases the more penalty points you have.

None of the insurers contacted by this paper would reveal by how much they loaded premiums for a customer with five or more penalty points.

Should you have five or more penalty points on your licence, most insurers — including Aviva and Liberty — will refuse to offer you a quote if you’re a new customer. A spokeswoman for Zurich confirmed that the insurer won’t quote a new customer if that individual has more than five penalty points. Drink-driving convictions will cost you dearly with motor insurance. Liberty, for example, will load your premium by up to 100pc if you have one. You will also struggle to get an insurer to cover you if you have been disqualified from driving or have a driving conviction.

Liberty, for example, will not quote any driver who has been disqualified from driving in the last seven years. Aviva does not quote for drivers with a disqualification unless they are a current or previous customer — though the circumstances of the disqualification would be reviewed before the company declined to quote someone.