My friend has finished his UK drink driving ban and got his licence back does this mean he now has to say?

hes only had a licence for 0-6 months when filling in insurance quotes? he previously held his licence for 8 years+...

the price difference is enormous so he wants to make sure hes doing it right.

Of course you have to declare it, an endorsement for a drink driving offence stays on your licence for 11 years.

Of course you might manage to get a cover without declaring it before that time, but if you are involved in ANY accident your policy will be invalid, and the police will check through DVLA as a matter of course.

In essence you will be driving WITHOUT car insurance, with all the repurcussions that brings, I know, I lost mine in 2000 for 12 months, and yes, the insurance premiums are higher, that's the extra penalty I have to pay, but I'm happy in the knowledge that if I injured someone in an accident, the insurance company would pay the required compensation, not the pennies they would end up with if they sued me.

Your friend needs to read the application very carefully, and make sure that he is not hiding anything. He needs also to understand the stipulations of the initial ban. I don't know anything about the law in the UK, but I do know that in the states, insurance fraud is frowned upon very heavily; the difference in price is nothing compared to the cost of being convicted of fraud.

I would not trust any of the answers you receive here; every case is different and insurance companies have different regulations. Perhaps your friend has another friend who has some legal experience that he can ask.

He should put down the total number of years he's been driving and he needs to disclose his conviction - insurance companies are all about small print, if he fails to disclose his conviction and it comes out when he needs to make a claim he could wind up with nothing and the company will void the policy.

He needs to ring them and ask for advice on filling out the form.

They have to answer all questions honestly. If anything is answered wrongly, it can be classed as fraud and the insurance company may sue. At the very least, the insurance policy will be invalid because the declarations were false.

The questions that refer to endorsements on licenses etc are relevant for up to 5 years after the offence. It is probable the premium will be higher for a while, but will drop again once the insurance company consider it ok and has gone past their specified period.

It isn't worth taking the risk in not declaring everything.

He puts down that he's held a license for 8+ years - there are other boxes that deal with convictions.

And if he's been done for driving whilst drunk, that's going to whack the price up a whole lot more, in any event.

No, but he does have to declare the drink driving ban. His premiums will be astronomical for the next couple of years because of this.