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The Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE) is a central database that records all incidents reported to car insurance providers in the past six years. It’s run by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) to help fight insurance fraud.
All incidents you report, big or small, are recorded on CUE, regardless of whether you made a claim.
When you take out a policy or make a claim, your car insurance provider can check your insurance history on CUE.
Insurance providers can use the information on CUE to help them calculate what price to charge you and check that any information you’ve given is accurate.
Even if you don’t want to claim, you must disclose any relevant incidents to your car insurance provider. Failing to do so is called non-disclosure and is a type of insurance fraud that could lead to your cover being invalidated or cancelled.
What is CUE?
CUE (the Claims and Underwriting Exchange) is a central database that holds millions of records relating to car, home, and personal injury insurance.
The information held on the national database includes all incidents reported to insurance providers, no matter how trivial or minor, and regardless of whether they involve an actual claim.
CUE is one of several UK insurance databases that hold information about people’s insurance and claims history that are managed by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB). MIB also runs the Motor Insurance Database (now called Navigate), which is a central record of all insured vehicles. In addition, the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud Theft Register (MIAFTR) holds records of stolen and written-off vehicles.
Why does the CUE car insurance database exist?
CUE was set up in 1994 to help fight insurance fraud.
Car insurance fraud is the most common type of insurance fraud in the UK. According to the latest figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI), 45,800 fraudulent motor insurance claims were detected in the UK in 2023, worth a total of £501 million.
Fraud costs honest insurance customers money by bumping up the average price of annual premiums. By allowing insurance providers to easily access information about incidents and claims, CUE makes it harder to commit fraud or ‘misrepresent’ a claims history.
What information does CUE hold on me?
If you’re a UK driver, the details of any incidents you’ve reported to your car insurance provider(s) in the past six years are held on the CUE car insurance database. That includes details of any claims made, as well as minor incidents that were disclosed to your insurance provider that didn’t result in a claim.
When you apply for a car insurance policy or make a claim, subscribed insurance providers can access the CUE database to check on your insurance history. So, it’s important to be upfront and honest with your provider about your claims history, driving history and any cancelled car insurance policies.
How does CUE affect my car insurance?
Insurance providers use the CUE car insurance database to confirm that the information you’ve given them about your claims history is honest and correct. They can also use details of any incidents reported that didn’t result in a claim to get a broader picture of the risk involved in insuring you.
The information about your insurance history allows insurance providers to calculate an accurate price for your car insurance, along with other factors including:
Your age
Where you live
Your occupation
Your annual mileage
What car you drive.
The good news for honest motorists is that information held on the CUE UK insurance database helps reduce fraud, and this ultimately helps keep the cost of car insurance down.
Storing information in a central, accessible system makes life easier for both you and your insurance provider. Whenever you report an incident – big or small – to your insurance provider, they’ll update CUE so that the information will show up on the national database for other insurance providers to see.
That means you don’t have to worry about forgetting a past incident and your insurance provider doesn’t need to ask as many questions when you take out a policy.
What if I don’t report an incident?
CUE holds information about all the incidents you’ve declared to your insurance provider in the past six years, so it could be tempting to keep quiet and not report an incident, especially if it was minor.
It might not seem like a big deal, but by deliberately withholding information about an incident, you’d be committing ‘non-disclosure’, also called ‘misrepresentation’, which is a form of insurance fraud. This could invalidate your car insurance and mean you might have to pay more for insurance in the future.
How can I find out what information CUE holds on me?
Under the data protection act (General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR), you can find out what information the CUE insurance database holds about you by completing a Subject Access Request form on the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) website.
Through MIB, you can request information about:
Your claims history – but bear in mind that getting the information can take up to a month, so it might be easier to ask your insurance provider
Your insurance history
Insurance details for someone else (provided you have their consent)
Any claims made to the MIB relating to accidents with uninsured drivers
Claims relating to a written-off or stolen vehicle.
What can I do if the information about me on CUE is incorrect?
The MIB only collects and stores the data supplied by your insurance provider, so if you disagree with the specifics of an incident, your first port of call should be your insurance provider at the time.
The MIB should be able to provide the dates of any incidents and the value of any claims so you can check the accuracy of the information on CUE. If the insurance provider agrees with you that the information held on CUE is incorrect, you can ask them to confirm this is in writing and update CUE.
If you have a query about the information held about you on CUE, or you want to make a complaint, you can contact the MIB on 0345 165 2803 (freephone) or by emailing dataprotection@mib.org.uk.
Can CUE save me money on my car insurance?
Not necessarily. Overall, the CUE motor insurance database helps lower the average cost of car insurance in the UK by reducing fraud. But individually, the information held on the CUE database could either raise or lower your annual premium – it depends on what incidents have been reported to CUE in the past six years.
Even incidents that didn’t result in a claim could have an impact because insurance providers may see you as more of a risk.
There are various other ways to try to reduce your car insurance premiums, including:
Increasing your voluntary excess
Adding a more experienced named driver to your policy
Building up your no claims discount.
Another way to find a cheaper car insurance deal is to shop around and compare quotes. When you compare with us it only takes a few minutes to find a list of quotes so you can search for cover at a price that suits you.
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Amy helps make sure you get the best value when choosing insurance. Thanks to more than four years’ experience at Compare the Market, she understands what people look for, working closely with insurance providers to offer you deals and services that are fair, easy to understand and right for your needs.
Stephen Maunder is an experienced personal finance editor, having spent more than a decade working for consumer print and online titles. He won several industry awards for his personal finance features at Which?, before becoming Deputy Editor at Compare the Market.
As an award-winning journalist, author and broadcast commentator, Kate has been writing about personal finance for more than 20 years. She’s the former Money Editor for The Independent.
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