What happens if I drive over the amount of mileage that I indicated on my insurance policy?

The car blows up, lol.

Keep your mouth shut

I.e Don't be posting this on facebook, instagram, twitter, telling friends etc



If you have one of those insurance driving habit tracking tools installed then maybe they'll know

I think it is obvious, you should call your insurance company and let them know you are driving a lot more and need it adjusted.

NovaScotianKid wrote: ↑ I bought my first car last August. I wrote down that I'd drive around 10,000 km per year. It's not even March an I'm just over 90000. I severely underestimated how much I'd drive.

Would I get into trouble for this and how would they know?

I hope you meant 9,000 and not 90,000 because there is absolutely no way someone would think they're only driving 10,000km in a year and "unexpectedly" drive 90,000km in 7 months.

As previous poster said, you should be letting your insurer know because misrepresentation can void your coverage.

How would they know you might think to yourself? Suppose your car got totalled and an adjuster takes a look at it notes the number of km driven. BAM - deny coverage.

As mentioned, they can deny your coverage since the mileage is different. Up to you whether or not you are willing to risk that.

No difference in premium from 10k-20k, so you can just tell them to update to 20k on your next renewal.

I hear people say just make sure the distance to work is correct and that will be all that matters

just dont lie about where you live....
the insurance company doesnt care if you are under. As long as you arent saying you are doing 5k and really doing 50k. Its an estimate.

don't like

the difference in price is probably minor

however getting caught lying to them will not be minor.

i know the people on this board are huge fans of doing insurance fraud -- and then complaining about lack of payment when a claim occurs.
don't be like them.

blackbirdman wrote: ↑I don't think they will find out unless you get into a severe accident and they check your kilometers when you first had the car insured and compared it to when the accident happened. SO they would get the average of the year. I think if your over by 1000-2000 km they might not care since it is an estimate and it's not going to be exact as long as it's in range of the amount you gave them. Now if you go over by like 3000k or more a year then you may have a problem.

How would they even find this out? When I got the car, with 80k on it, I don't think that I told the company the mileage.

NovaScotianKid wrote: ↑ How would they even find this out? When I got the car, with 80k on it, I don't think that I told the company the mileage.

When you take your car in for insurance related repairs, the shop inputs the milage on the paperwork, which in turn is viewable by the insurer. Depending on the person taking care of your file, it may or may not raise an eyebrow.

NovaScotianKid wrote: ↑ How would they even find this out? When I got the car, with 80k on it, I don't think that I told the company the mileage.

Were you truthful when stating use of vehicle (personal or for work) and the distance form your home to your place of employment?

so you drove 10k in 7 months and told the insurance company 10k per year. Given your usage you'd be around 17k per year. I don't think 7k per year is a massive deal but if you want to be fully transparent just call your insurance company and tell them that you're on track to drive about 17k km during your policy year. It should probably have either no or minimal impact on your rates.

sometimes the insurance company will send you a letter and ask you to write back what the odometer reading is (i have received these letters myself in the past). doesnt happen all the time but they do these things

the government requires you to report the odometer reading when you renew your license sticker, and if you take your car to the dealer for service they will also take the odometer reading. its unlikely that the insurance company will check the odometer via these places, but just so you know you are leaving a paper trail by other means

like others have said, you should come clean about it because once you get into an accident, the insurance company will find out one way or the other. the first thing insurance companies do is to look for ways to deny your coverage, and odometer misrepresentation is one thing they can screw you on

or you can keep your mouth shut and pray that you never get into an accident

The insurance company really has no way to find out if you're ripping them off except in the event of an accident or other event where they inspect the vehicle. Really comes down to the simple fact of, do you want to run the risk of the insurance company not covering you in the event of an accident to save a few bucks or spend a few bucks and make sure you're covered.

LoANeal wrote: ↑ The insurance company really has no way to find out if you're ripping them off except in the event of an accident or other event where they inspect the vehicle.

So, basically, when you actually "need" insurance lol

Give the insurance a rough estimate of your annual mileage. You renew every year and if the number has drastically changed due to a change in employment location or change of address, then update then. They don't expect you to give an exact number as you there would be a couple of outliers once in a while (i.e. you drive down to Florida for a vacation one year.)

Obviously if you tell the insurance you drive 12k a year when in fact it's like 22k, then that's a problem. If it's off by a couple 1000km, who cares.

Besides, they probably figure out your average based upon what you report as your driving distance to work, and then use a +/- scale.