Uninsured drivers: 2.9 million admit they’ve been fined for driving without cover
One in 20 adults have received a fine for driving without insurance, and 3.2 million admitted that they have lost their policy details once before.
A new study has estimated that approximately 2.9 million motorists have been fined for driving without insurance at least once in the past.*
The data comes from the latest survey by Renewal, the new personal finance app powered by Go.Compare. Around half (49%) of all drivers in the research admitted that they have made a mistake that made their vehicle unroadworthy. Of these, 15% said they have been penalised for being uninsured – equal to 5% of all adults.** The penalty for making this mistake is currently a fine of £300 and six penalty points on your licence - a very costly error for those who’ve made it.***
The survey also suggests that this error could be down to losing insurance details and therefore not knowing when their insurance policy ends – just under one in 10 drivers (approximately 8%) surveyed said they’ve lost their insurance details before, equal to around one in 20 (6%) of all adults.** This is equivalent to 3.2 million adults nationwide who have been left without key information like what they’re covered for, which drivers are included in their policy and the policy term.****
Younger drivers are twice as likely to have lost their policy, according to the survey’s findings. Approximately 14% of drivers under-35 stated that they’ve lost their policy details before, compared to just 6% of drivers aged 35 or older.
Matt Sanders, spokesperson at Go.Compare (which powers the Renewal app), said: “Your car insurance policy documents aren’t something you’re likely to look at every day, so it can be all too easy for them to become lost in a stack of papers, stuffed in a drawer or mistakenly deleted from your inbox if you were sent a digital copy.
“While you likely won’t check them too often, it’s important to make sure your policy details are stored somewhere safe so that you can easily access them if and when you need them. It could make things difficult otherwise if you need to claim or find out what you’re covered for. In some circumstances, it could lead you mistakenly driving without cover, which could be very costly.
“Using an app like Renewal is a good way to keep track of your documents, as it allows you to store all the details of your insurance policies in one place, giving you easy access to the information you need whenever you need it. This saves you from scouring your inbox or papers at home to get what you need, as you’ll know you can just quickly pop into the app to find it.”
The Renewal app can be downloaded via: https://www.myrenewal.app/
ENDS
Contact Information
Alex McCormick
Notes to editors
For further information please contact:
go.compare@fdcomms.co.uk
Keep up-to-date with Go.Compare on X (Twitter); @GoCompare
*The 18+ 2022 ONS population figure is 55,022,253. The proportion of all adults (107/2000) who have ever been fined for driving without insurance is 5.35% (based on the below survey, which was rebased to be nationally representative). 5.35% of 55,022,253 = 2,943,691.
**Sourced from a survey conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Go.Compare, among a sample of 2,000 UK Nationally Representative Consumers aged 18+, with 1505 drivers surveyed as part of this. The data was collected between 11 March 2026 – 13 March 2026.
Censuswide abides by and employs members of the Market Research Society and follows the MRS code of conduct and ESOMAR principles. Censuswide is also a member of the British Polling Council.
***Based on Gov.uk.
****The 18+ 2022 ONS population figure is 55,022,253. The proportion of all adults who have ever lost their car insurance details is 5.85% (based on the survey, which was rebased to be nationally representative). 5.85% of 55,022,253 = 3,218,802.
About Go.Compare
Go.Compare is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs.
It does not charge people to use its services and does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. Go.Compare makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site.
When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. It is this approach to comparing products that secured the company an invitation to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) in 2008, and it is still the only comparison site to be a member of this organisation.
Go.Compare has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest and works with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.
Go.Compare is part of Future Plc and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
More information can be found here www.gocompare.com or here https://www.futureplc.com/brands/.