Every Driver Buying Insurance From an Individual Risks a £300 Fine and 6 Points

• The Insurance Fraud Bureau says 596 suspected organised ghost broking networks were reported to it in the last year, and at least one new network turns up every day.
• A Chartered Insurance Institute survey found about one in ten adults who bought motor insurance in the past three years paid an individual by card or bank transfer, and 24 percent of 18 to 30 year olds did.
• Police can give a driver caught on a fake policy a fixed penalty of £300 and 6 points, and officers can seize the car.

The Cheap Quote That Turns a Driver Into the Offender

A driver who pays a stranger for car insurance and receives a fake policy has bought nothing, and the law treats the car as uninsured. GOV.UK sets the police fixed penalty for driving a vehicle without the right cover at £300 and 6 penalty points. A court can go further with an unlimited fine and disqualification. The seller keeps the money and the driver carries the consequences.

The defence is free and quick. Confirm that the seller is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), then put the registration number into askMID, the service that shows whether a vehicle sits on the Motor Insurance Database. Anyone can check their own vehicle on askMID at no charge.

Ghost brokers pose as insurance brokers and sell fake cover through unrealistically priced deals. The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) received reports of 596 suspected organised networks in the last 12 months. Each network can reach thousands of people through social media and community groups, using several accounts, targeted posts and fake testimonials. A glowing review under a cheap quote can belong to the sales method itself.

Ursula Jallow, director at the IFB, names the people the networks go after. “Ghost brokers deceive people with less experience of buying insurance, which includes young and first-time drivers, and people who have recently moved to the UK. Victims are left out of pocket and risk their vehicle being seized for being uninsured.”

One Network Found Every Day and a Survey That Shows the Reach

The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) put a number on how often drivers meet this pattern. Its survey found that around one in ten adults who bought motor insurance in the past three years paid an individual for the policy, by card or bank transfer, instead of paying a company. The CII reads that result as a sign that millions of drivers could have run into ghost broking.

Buyers aged 18 to 30 stood out. Of that group, 24 percent paid an individual for motor insurance, which is nearly one in four. The CII treats paying an individual instead of a company as exposure to the warning signs of ghost broking, so the survey counts the drivers who have already stood where the scam starts. It does not say how many of them bought a fake policy.

The IFB has tracked the problem for years. It detected 320 ghost broker networks in 2022, 435 in 2023 and 485 in 2024. That is 165 more networks in two years, the 52 percent rise the IFB reported in May 2025. The latest figure of 596 counts suspected networks reported to the IFB in the last 12 months, so it comes from a different count than the earlier detections. Set side by side, the figures show the direction of travel and give no precise growth rate. Our earlier report on young drivers buying fake cover covers the young drivers the networks often target.

Price draws drivers to the scam. In May 2025 Confused.com data put the average policy for an 18 year old at £2,434 and for a 17 year old at £2,258, even after average premiums fell 17 percent in a year. A quote far below that figure looks like a bargain to a first-time buyer. Jallow summed up the cost of falling for one in May 2025: “The impact is devastating. We’ve seen victims lose thousands of pounds, have their identities stolen, their confidence and self-esteem shattered, and, in some cases, they have even had their car seized for driving uninsured.”

What the Law Does to the Driver Who Bought It

Two sets of penalties sit behind a fake policy, and they fall on different people. The first belongs to the person at the wheel. The police can give a fixed penalty of £300 and 6 penalty points to a driver caught in a vehicle they are not insured to drive. A court case opens the door to an unlimited fine and disqualification. The police can also seize the vehicle and, in some cases, destroy it.

The second belongs to the registered keeper. A keeper of an uninsured vehicle that has not been declared off the road with a SORN could be fined £100 and see the vehicle wheel-clamped, impounded or destroyed. A court can raise the fine to a maximum of £1,000. GOV.UK adds that the keeper still has to pay for insurance on top of any fines received. A driver who bought a fake policy ends up with a fine, possible points, and still needs genuine cover.

No officer has to stop the car for the keeper penalty to start. The DVLA checks its vehicle register regularly against the Motor Insurance Database, which the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) manages, to identify uninsured vehicles. The MIB then sends an insurance advisory letter that sets out what the keeper must do to comply. A keeper who does not comply receives a fixed penalty notice, and court action follows if it goes unpaid. This continuous insurance enforcement covers England, Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland has different rules.

The comparison runs against the database, so the entry there is the record worth confirming. Messages and paperwork from a seller are not part of that check. Our report on uninsured car seizures covers the enforcement side.

The Warning Signs Before You Pay

The campaign, called Ghost Broking: See Through the Scam, launched on 23 October 2026. The Association of British Insurers, the CII, the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department and the FCA joined the IFB to run it. For the first time the campaign offers multilingual material for people who speak English as a second language. The IFB’s guidance gives drivers four warning signs.

The first is a policy that looks unrealistically cheap, with a quote given up front. The second is a seller who talks only through private social media messages or WhatsApp. The third is an advert that looks unprofessional. The fourth is a seller with no legitimate website, no UK landline and no address. The CII survey adds a fifth thing to watch: a request to pay an individual by card or bank transfer instead of a company.

One sign alone does not prove fraud, but a seller who ticks two or three should not get a payment. Stop the conversation, and go to a broker or insurer you can verify through the checks below.

How to Check Your Policy Today

Start with the seller. The campaign tells drivers to check that the broker or insurer is authorised by the FCA, which means searching the FCA Register for the firm. Check that a broker is a member of the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) and that an insurer is a member of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau.

Then check the car. On askMID, a driver can see whether their own vehicle is on the Motor Insurance Database for free. A one-off search of another driver’s vehicle costs £10, which helps after an accident when you need to know whether the other car is insured. A policy that has been running for days and still does not show is a reason to phone the insurer named on the paperwork, using a number from the insurer’s own website and not one the seller supplied. Stay off the road until the cover is confirmed: driving without it is the offence.

The askMID site carries a notice that the service is being replatformed and rebranded as Check Their Vehicle, with go live scheduled for Monday 7 December. Drivers who check after that date should use the official askMID page or its stated replacement, and type the web address in themselves in place of following a message or advert. A lookalike site should be left alone.

If You Think You Were Sold a Fake

Stop driving the car. A fake policy means the car is uninsured on the road, and the £300 and 6 points apply to the driver whatever the seller promised. Check askMID, and if the vehicle is missing, buy real cover from an FCA authorised broker or insurer before the car moves again.

Then report the seller. The IFB runs a confidential CheatLine, online or on 0800 422 0421, and Crimestoppers powers the phone line. Jallow asks for evidence: “We urge anyone with evidence of ghost broking to report it to our confidential CheatLine so we can work with insurers and police to stop these fraudsters.”

Keep the adverts, messages and payment records the seller sent: the IFB wants evidence. For a deeper look at what fraud adds to every premium, see our piece on fraud and honest drivers’ premiums. New networks keep appearing, and the cheapest quote in the group chat is still the most expensive one to accept.

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