Last year I was ‘invited’ to attend a Speed Awareness course and happily accepted on the basis that it would avoid me being penalised in the future for incurring the penalty points that I would otherwise receive. Recently I needed to renew my car insurance and, using one of the comparison websites, found that Admiral, Elephant and Handbag (all the same insurance group) offered the same lowest premium.

I could have purchased the new policy immediately online but I needed to be certain on a couple of details, and so rang their sales line. During the agent's summing-up prior to paying the premium he asked if I had ever attended a Speed Awareness course to which I had to reply "yes". "Ah ha!" he said, "that changes everything" and promptly added a further £25 to my new Admiral premium. I protested but he said that I had "offended" and that it was his group's policy to increase premiums in these cases. At the very least the Admiral is surely being underhand in taking this approach of becoming judge and jury in these cases?