Legal requirements

www.gov.uk/autism-and-driving

"You must tell DVLA if you have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and it affects your ability to drive safely.

If your driving is not affected by autism, you do not need to tell DVLA. Ask your doctor if you’re unsure."

I don't know anyone who's autism efects their ability to drive. The goverment is just hedging it's bets.

Thanks, that’s good to know.

For me, autism changed nothing on my travel insurance policy. I declared I had it, I declared that it hadn't ever caused me to cancel travel plans up to this point in my life, and I got the same price as if I didn't declare it but with backup should something happen. 

I asked my GP about this with regard to travel insurance and they didn’t know the answer. I still don’t know whether I need to declare or not, given that it is classified as medical by the NHS, yet is not an illness. I don’t want to declare autism to travel insurers unless I have to as my travel insurance costs are ridiculously high as it is. I would love to know how I can find out the answer to this question before taking out a new policy. All the travel insurers I have asked want me to go through the stages of getting an official policy quote in order to tell me anything about specific conditions and costs, and I don’t want to do that.

There is a separate article for each of England, Wales and Scotland:

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/transport/driving/england

For health insurance/travel insurance/life insurance it's a good idea to inform them so they don't pull it on you if you need to make a claim, but they decide on coverage based on whether it's caused you to cancel a trip in the past/affected your work history 

For DVLA as said below you only need to inform them if it effects your driving. You are expected to be the judge of that, but if you've been driving with no problem for most of your life then I doubt it would suddenly begin seriously effecting you now you have a new diagnosis.

Other than that no legal obligation to disclose, especially at work, if you do not want to, but there can be benefits but also risk of people's opinions. 

Thanks very much, GPK26, that's a good start. I was hoping the information/advice pages on this site might provide some practical help, but can't seem to find it anywhere.

Hi Chris - similar situation, recently diagnosed in my 50’s.

you ask a very good question about the different areas. I think that I read somewhere about not having to declare to DVLA unless your autism could impact your ability to drive. Which sort of makes sense, but who is to judge if your autism could cause issues when driving?