Our two sons, aged 23 and 25, finally moved from the house to another city. They have been drivers in our car insurance policy from time to time since they started driving and now have full G licenses and five star ratings but do not own cars. Removing them from our policy reduces the annual premium for our two cars from $ 3,000 to $ 2,000. But if my sons are not on the policy, will they be treated like brand new drivers when they finally buy cars and get their own insurance? Will they have to pay much more expensive premiums? My understanding has always been that if someone is not listed on the insurance policy for even one day, the insurance company will declare him a non-driver and return to the beginner rating for their record. – Mark, Toronto
Absence may not make your insurance company’s heart grow, but at least in Ontario they can’t contradict you. If you had car insurance before and then choose to stop insuring – for example, because you sold your car and decided to take transit – you will not have to start from scratch as a brand new driver if you get insurance again, said Canadian Insurance Bureau (IBC).
“Ontario has laws that prohibit them from using insurance coverage to increase your insurance premiums,” said Rob de Pruis, IBC’s national director of consumer and industry relations. “There are exceptions if you have lost coverage for very specific reasons, such as a suspended license or fraud.
Although the rules vary depending on the province, insurance companies have the right to base your premium on certain risk factors. In Ontario, they include how often and how far you drive, your age, gender, where you live and your driving record, de Prüis said.
In general, companies do not disclose how much weight they attach to each factor.
When it comes to your driving record, companies usually judge you by how many driving convictions – such as speeding fines – and guilt clashes you’ve had in the last six years.
In Ontario, if you’ve had a clean drive in the last six years, you’ll get a five-star rating. The star rating is called by different names, depending on the province.
While wine and ticket crashes could lower your star rating, there will be no gap in your insurance coverage in Ontario, de Prouis said.
So, if you sold your car in 2017, you were not insured for five years and you were not to blame for accidents or tickets during that time, you will not lose this rating.
The car you insure also matters. Insurance companies set tariffs for vehicles mainly by considering claims and safety data for other cars of the same make, model and year.
And newer drivers usually pay more. So a 25-year-old in Ontario with a five-star rating will pay more for Honda CR-V 2020 insurance than a 40-year-old with the same rating.
Do you mean the gap?
But in most other provinces, insurance companies may consider a longer pause when setting tariffs – although that doesn’t mean you’ll be considered a brand new driver, de Prüis said.
“In Alberta, an omission of more than two years can affect your premiums,” he said, adding that it is difficult to predict how much higher premiums may be because so many factors determine insurance calculations.
In the three provinces with state insurance companies – British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba – drivers receive discounts for the years they drove without tickets or wine clashes, even if they did not have insurance coverage.
“The driver must not have an actively registered vehicle or insurance policy in order to continue earning [experience] points for each year of accident-free driving, “said Tyler McMurchie, a spokesman for Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), in an email. “However, the driver must have a valid driver’s license – not suspended or expired – to continue earning points.”
Have a question about driving? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and please put “Driving Concerns” in your topic. Canada is a great place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.
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