MID Database

Silver-Surfer_2

Joe_Horner wrote: »

As things stand it's really quite straight forward.

The RTA requires a driver to produce the required evidence of insurance when requested, and that required evidence is the certificate.

A police officer is only allowed to seize a vehicle for no insurance if two conditions are met: (1) the required evidence of insurance isn't produced, AND (2) he has reasonable grounds to suspect there is no insurance.

If you produce the required evidence then it doesn't matter what his suspicions are, he can't seize your vehicle because seizure requires BOTH elements - failure to produce evidence AND suspicion.

This has been clearly established in case law by Pryor v Greater Manchester Police where the "suspicion" element was created by an insurance worker (incorrectly as it happened) telling the police on the phone that cover didn't exist. Because a certificate had been produced, even that apparently definitive evidence wasn't enough to justify seizure.

What they can do if you produce a certificate and they think you've forged it is take details and investigate. If, by subsequent investigation, they then find that it was, indeed, fake or cancelled, then you're facing the no insurance charge and an issuing / uttering a false document charge as well. Which is a whole lot more pain than 6 points on your licence.

I'd like to think they'd seize the document too.

AdrianC

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

What source have you got tha from?

You're right.

I thought they'd changed the primary record - as they have for tax and MOT - but they bottled it a couple of years ago, when they were looking at removing the legal requirement to forward an emailed PDF back...
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/245302/insurance-certificates-final-ia.pdf

Cool. So I do have primary legal evidence of two cancelled policies. !!!!!!...

AdrianC

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

I'd like to think they'd seize the document too.

Yeh, that's going to work well, isn't it?

Here's a print-out of the PDF that I've got in my mail file and saved to dropbox with revision control turned on.
Oh, you've seized it. Oh, no. What will I do...?

Silver-Surfer_2

AdrianC wrote: »

Yeh, that's going to work well, isn't it?

Here's a print-out of the PDF that I've got in my mail file and saved to dropbox with revision control turned on.
Oh, you've seized it. Oh, no. What will I do...?

So you'd let someone keep the evidence to the production offence?

Well done, your sarcastic comment isn't so clever now.

AdrianC

Think for a moment.

The "evidence" is a printed copy of a PDF that was emailed to you in the first place. You've complied with the legal requirement, and forwarded the email back to the insurer.

That printed copy has been seized. Do the police go through all of your email accounts, all of your online storage accounts, any hard disk you may own, to make sure there's no other copy that they need to delete?

Joe_Horner

AdrianC wrote: »

Cool. So I do have primary legal evidence of two cancelled policies. !!!!!!...

Yes, they're the primary evidence as far as seizure or other roadside action is concerned but they're not definitive proof of cover.

So, if you use them and subsequent investigations show them to be false, then you're in a whole world of pain. There's the driving without insurance (obviously) but also an offence under sections 1, 3, and /or 4 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 - up to 6 months at magistrates or 10 years from a proper judge.

dacouch

AdrianC wrote: »

I've got two apparently valid PDF certificates here for policies that have been cancelled. And that's before we consider straight forgeries.



Indeed it's not. But it's more accurate than certificates. And, where it is inaccurate, it's down to insurers failing to follow their own policies and procedures correctly.



Such as? Don't get confused with where it's the policyholder's responsibility to add vehicles to MID if they're on-risk for more than a trivially short period.

1) I purposely said "Relevant" Certificate, the Certificates for your cancelled policies are not relevant as they're no longer a legal document confirming you're insured against third party liabilities.

2) If you've ever had any dealings with Traffic Officers ringing in to check Insurance and / or trying to drop a motorist they've taken a dislike to you'd understand why a relevant Certificate is so important. On the same token, if you realised how little about Insurance and the RTA some of the staff who man Insurers MID desks you'd also realise how important a relevant Certificate is.

3) I'm not sure what your final paragraph means, but there potentially lots of vehicles that won't appear on the MID as some vehicle owners such as fleets and motor traders are obliged to upload vehicle details immediately which in effect means within a reasonable amount of time. Depending on actual circumstances this could legitimately be quite some days up to 14 days after the vehicle starts being driven.

Incidently fleets and motortraders may upload the information themselves or supply it to their Insurers to upload depending on how their Insurer works.

AdrianC

dacouch wrote: »

1) I purposely said "Relevant" Certificate, the Certificates for your cancelled policies are not relevant as they're no longer a legal document confirming you're insured against third party liabilities.

And that's exactly my point. You get stopped at some odd hour. The car isn't on MID. The policeman can't get through to who you say your insurer is. He has a piece of paper in his hand that purports to be a valid relevant certificate.

Joe_Horner

AdrianC wrote: »

And that's exactly my point. You get stopped at some odd hour. The car isn't on MID. The policeman can't get through to who you say your insurer is. He has a piece of paper in his hand that purports to be a valid relevant certificate.

Yes, and he has to take that evidence at face value, just as he did in the days before the MID when a policy could be cancelled but the driver didn't post the certificate back.

He's free to investigate later if he's suspicious (because, for example, the policy isn't showing on the MID) but he's not entitled to seize a vehicle on those suspicions.

Honestly, no matter how popular opinion paints it, the potential harm of a few uninsured drivers getting away with it for a bit is a LOT lower than the potential harm of the police being able to seize things - and potentially strand people - on mere suspicion.

dacouch

AdrianC wrote: »

And that's exactly my point. You get stopped at some odd hour. The car isn't on MID. The policeman can't get through to who you say your insurer is. He has a piece of paper in his hand that purports to be a valid relevant certificate.

As Joe has mentioned, the relevant case is Pryor, if in such a case eg after you've produced your "Relevant" Certificate the Police seize the vehicle it would automatically be an unlawful seizure leaving you open to recover your outlay and consequential costs from the police force