diff --git a/test/Unit/PgQuerySpec.hs b/test/Unit/PgQuerySpec.hs
index 2224aa281..30c647d3d 100644
--- a/test/Unit/PgQuerySpec.hs
+++ b/test/Unit/PgQuerySpec.hs
@@ -4,18 +4,46 @@ module Unit.PgQuerySpec where
 
 import Test.Hspec
 
-import Database.HDBC (toSql, quickQuery)
+import Database.HDBC (IConnection, SqlValue, toSql, prepare, execute,
+                     SqlError, seState, fetchAllRowsAL)
 
 import PgQuery (insert)
-import Types (SqlRow(..))
+import Types (SqlRow(SqlRow))
+import TestTypes (fromList, incStr, incNullableStr, incInsert, incId)
+import Data.Map (toList)
+import Data.Text(pack)
 
-import SpecHelper
+import SpecHelper(dbWithSchema)
+
+quickALQuery :: IConnection conn => conn -> String -> [SqlValue] -> IO [[(String, SqlValue)]]
+quickALQuery conn q bind = do
+  sth <- prepare conn q
+  _ <- execute sth bind
+  fetchAllRowsAL sth
 
 spec :: Spec
 spec = around dbWithSchema $ do
   describe "insert" $
-    it "can insert into an empty table" $ \conn -> do
-      _ <- insert 1 "auto_incrementing_pk" (SqlRow [
-          ("non_nullable_string", toSql ("a string"::String))]) conn
-      r <- quickQuery conn "select count(1) from \"1\".auto_incrementing_pk" []
-      [[toSql (1 :: Int)]] `shouldBe` r
+    describe "with an auto-increment key" $ do
+      it "inserts and responds with a full object description" $ \conn -> do
+        r <- insert 1 "auto_incrementing_pk" (SqlRow [
+            ("non_nullable_string", toSql ("a string"::String))]) conn
+        let returnRow = fromList . toList $ r
+        incStr returnRow `shouldBe` "a string"
+        incNullableStr returnRow `shouldBe` Nothing
+        incInsert returnRow `shouldSatisfy` not . null
+        incId returnRow `shouldSatisfy` (>= 0)
+        tRows <- quickALQuery conn "select * from \"1\".auto_incrementing_pk" []
+        [returnRow] `shouldBe` map fromList tRows
+
+      it "throws an exception if the PK is not unique" $ \conn -> do
+        r <- insert 1 "auto_incrementing_pk" (SqlRow [
+            ("non_nullable_string", toSql ("a string"::String))]) conn
+        let row = SqlRow .  map (\(k, v) -> (pack k, v)) . toList $ r
+        insert 1 "auto_incrementing_pk" row conn `shouldThrow` \e ->
+          seState e == "23505" -- uniqueness violation code
+
+      it "throws an exception if a required value is missing" $ \conn -> do
+        insert 1 "auto_incrementing_pk" (SqlRow [
+          ("nullable_string", toSql ("a string"::String))]) conn
+          `shouldThrow` \e -> seState e == "23502"