Immobilisers and insurance in Bedford — what your insurer wants to see

Two different questions get muddled together here, and Bedford drivers ask us both. They have different answers. The first is whether fitting an immobiliser makes your insurance cheaper. The second is whether your insurer requires one at all. The second matters far more, and it is the one almost nobody checks until after something has happened.

On the discount question, be realistic. Some insurers will reduce a premium for a professionally fitted, certified immobiliser and plenty will not move at all. Where it reliably makes a difference is on vehicles the underwriter is nervous about — higher-value cars, models with a known theft problem, and anything parked on a public street overnight. If your car is none of those, treat any reduction as a bonus rather than the reason for doing it.

The requirement question is the one worth ten minutes of your evening. On higher-value vehicles, a growing number of underwriters now make cover conditional on approved security being fitted, and that condition does not live in the summary you were emailed when you bought the policy. It sits in the endorsements — the section most people scroll past. A policy that says an approved immobiliser must be fitted and in use is a policy that can decline a theft claim if one is not.

So read the endorsements rather than the schedule, and look for the word approved and any category named alongside it. If you find something and are not sure what satisfies it, send us the line. We will tell you what meets it, including in the cases where what you already have is enough and you do not need us.

Where TASSA comes in is proof. TASSA is the industry register for vehicle security installers, and a TASSA-logged installation is recorded against the vehicle identification number by an accredited fitter, with the installer's identity verified. That is the difference between telling an insurer you had something fitted and being able to show them. A device bought off a marketplace and wired in by whoever was cheapest may work perfectly well and still be worth nothing at claim stage, because there is no independent record that it exists.

Every fit we do in Bedford is TASSA-certified on the day, and you get the certificate. It is not an extra and it is not a paid upgrade — it is the point of using a registered installer rather than a man with a van.

Then do the part people forget: tell them. Security you never declared cannot help you at renewal, cannot be taken into account on a quote, and is not evidence of anything if you only mention it after a claim. It takes one phone call or one message through the app, with the certificate to hand. Do it when the system goes in rather than the following spring, and mention it again at renewal, because a note made in year one does not always carry itself forward.

If you are somewhere in the MK40 to MK45 postcodes and want to know where your policy actually stands before you spend anything, message us the wording and the registration. The answer is free either way.