Can I find out (for free)if third party has insurance

Imnoexpert_2

I would like to find out for myself if the vehicle which hit my car has insurance. Not unreasonable I would have thought, and I naively assumed you could do this. I don't want to wait for my insurance company or police to to get back to me as this is taking some time.

The motor insurance database will charge me £4.

I could put in the details - as if I'm checking my own but there is a warning on the site that this breaches data protection.

Is there a way of finding out the information free and legally and quickly?

For discussion - Why on earth shouldn't I be able to get this information online since surely it would be for the public good to be able to check out other people to ensure they were insured?

Quentin

If you use AskMID free service it will only tell you whether or not it's insured today.

If you pay the £4 you will get the insurers details.

spacey2012

The warning, well they are unable to point to the wording of the legislation of what part of the DPA it would breech.
But if you have £4 the will gladly breech it.

Imnoexpert_2

Thanks for the thoughts.

They do quote a section of the data protection act, however as they are the data holders I think they would be the ones who breached the regulations if indeed there was a breech. The section provides for the data to be shared to prevent crime so revealing an uninsured motorist could well be an exception anyway.

There have been few convictions for breach of this section of the data protection act and I would guess almost all are horrendous and involve large organisations.

Anyone accessing the data on the site would be 'guilty' of some kind of deception when filling in the form - and of curse I wouldn't do that.


I hope no court in the land would penalise me for establishing that the person who recklessly endangered my family and wrote off our car was uninsnsured.

But I'm no expert!

vaio

what do you intend to do with the info when you get it?

Seems to me that merely knowing he is insured (today) doesn't actually get you anywhere.

Quentin

Imnoexpert wrote: »

I hope no court in the land would penalise me for establishing that the person who recklessly endangered my family and wrote off our car was uninsnsured....

If the car is uninsured and there is no dispute over liability it's irrelevant.

You can use the MIB uninsured driver scheme to claim for your costs if you don't have comprehensive cover to claim off now.

vaio

you can use the MIB to claim off even if you do have comprehensive cover yourself.

That way you end up with NCB intact & a non fault claim rather than reduced NCB & a fault claim

Aretnap

Imnoexpert wrote: »

They do quote a section of the data protection act, however as they are the data holders I think they would be the ones who breached the regulations if indeed there was a breech. The section provides for the data to be shared to prevent crime so revealing an uninsured motorist could well be an exception anyway

Section 55 makes it an offence to obtain data improperly so you'd be committing the offence, on top of any offences the data holders might be committing. I doubt whether the exception for preventing or detecting crime would apply to you as a private citizen - the police are already on the case and it's not your job to track down uninsured drivers. Whether you'd actually be prosecuted for it is a different question... probably not, but you never know.

The legalities aside, on a practical level as Quentin notes, the free service will only tell you if the car's insured today, not whether he was insured at the time of the accident. If he was uninsured but has decided to get insurance since the accident then his car will show up as insured. Conversely if he was insured, but his insurers have written his car off, it may now show up as uninsured. Basically if you want to know for sure your need to pay the £4, or wait for your insurers and/or the police to deal with it. If it makes you feel better you can add the £4 to your claim if you claim directly off his insurers, or the MIB.

NewFolder

Imnoexpert wrote: »

I would like to find out for myself if the vehicle which hit my car has insurance. Not unreasonable I would have thought, and I naively assumed you could do this. I don't want to wait for my insurance company or police to to get back to me as this is taking some time.

The motor insurance database will charge me £4.

I could put in the details - as if I'm checking my own but there is a warning on the site that this breaches data protection.

Is there a way of finding out the information free and legally and quickly?

For discussion - Why on earth shouldn't I be able to get this information online since surely it would be for the public good to be able to check out other people to ensure they were insured?

Most people would just use the free service to check it's insured. The £4 service goes a bit further and tells you more information, like the insurance company they are with, and contact details for the insurer.

As other people have said, how can it breach the DPA when they will give you the information, plus other information too, if you pay £4.

Aretnap

NewFolder wrote: »

As other people have said, how can it breach the DPA when they will give you the information, plus other information too, if you pay £4.

"A person must not knowingly or recklessly, without the consent of the data controller, obtain or disclose personal data or the information contained in personal data..."

If he made a false declaration to get the information he'd be getting it without the consent of the data controller, which is an offence. The fact that the data controller might agree to give out the information for £4 is neither here nor there really.

Plus there's the fact that it's not the same information. The paid for service tells him who (if anyone) insured the car *at the time of the accident*, which he is entitled to know in order to make a claim against them. The free service tells him if the car's insured *now*, some time after the accident, which is irrelevant to his claim and (bluntly) none of his business.

As breaches of the DPA go it's not a very big one, but a breach nonetheless.

my_names_dave

Aretnap wrote: »

As breaches of the DPA go it's not a very big one, but a breach nonetheless.

Really? This is public interest. Motor liability is a legal requirement, and it is in everyones interest that every car on the road is insured for at least third party liability. How is it a data protection issue? I see it on the same basis as LTD companies, and how all their records are available.