Why it costs more to insure your car in Leeds and Bradford

Both postcodes appeared in the AA Insurance’s top 10 areas with the highest annual comprehensive policy prices in a report which showed efforts to clamp down on fraudulent claims have not delivered the savings insurers hoped for.

Bradford is the eighth most expensive area, with an average price of £662.96, while Leeds follows closely behind at £659.71, according to the AA’s latest index.

It showed the typical quote for someone who shops around their yearly policy edged up by £6 or 1.2 per cent over the three months to September 30, marking the first quarterly increase in the cost of motor insurance since spring 2012, when prices fell in anticipation of a Government crackdown on ‘compensation culture’.

Janet Connor, managing director of AA Insurance, said reforms anticipated impact and warned premiums are likely to creep up further in the coming months.

She said: “Falling premiums had more to do with competitive tension. Premiums are, on average, now similar to their 2010 level and are no longer economically sustainable.”

The North-West of England is the most expensive place to insure a car in the UK, while the Isle of Man offers the cheapest deals with an average annual cost of £218. AA Insurance said that a new initiative called MyLicence, which asks motorists to provide their driving licence number when applying for car insurance, could help to reduce costs as it should cut the risk of the applicant lying about their driving history.

Meanwhile, lobby group FairFuelUK has revealed less than a fifth of motorists’ tax goes back into roads infrastructure, with drivers paying £42 billion a year to the Treasury. Campaigners accused the Government of “fleecing” drivers as it published research which showed 26.8 per cent of the amount raised by road taxes last year went on public transport and 54.6 per cent supported other Government spending.