Here’s a scenario that happens quite often…
A man calls me for a car insurance quote. I ask him if he’s had any car accidents in the last 10 years. He replies that he has not. I give him the quote and he wants to proceed. The next step is to order the reports for his driving record.
I order the reports for his driving record and, lo and behold, there’s an accident there. It’s an at-fault accident, so it will affect his rates.
I tell the man that I found this particular accident. The man seems confused. He tells me that he just checked his driving record and there was no record of the accident.
“You checked your driving record?” I ask him. He replies that he got his driver’s abstract from Service Ontario and there was no record of any accident.
Autoplus
Well, there’s the problem. People assume that we insurance brokers use just Service Ontario reports to verify people’s driving records. Actually, accidents don’t get recorded on your driver’s abstract, so Service Ontario will never have any record of your accident history. Accidents get recorded on an insurance database that shows your insurance history and claims. That database is called Autoplus. So, if you’ve had an accident, it will show up.
Now that the person knows that the accident does indeed show up on his record, the next question usually is, “When do accidents fall off my record”?
The bad news is that accidents don’t fall off your record. They will remain on your Autoplus report forever.
But How Do Accidents Affect My Rates, Then?
What they really should be asking, however, is “How long will accidents affect my rates?”
The short answer is this – The main part of your car insurance rate is based on how many years it has been since your last at-fault accident. The older the accident is, the lower your rate will be. Then, most insurance companies don’t look at accidents that are over 10 years old. So, when all of your accidents are over 10 years old, you’re considered accident-free by most insurance companies.
As always, if you’re looking for a new car insurance quote, call me. My phone number is at the top of this page.
