Insurance Database

stuhse

My wife was pulled over by the police last tuesday, and told her car was uninsured (showed no insurance on the database) and they would have to impound it. After half an hour of negotiating and helped by the fact that she is a respectable well dressed woman driving home from her job with the NHS , with an NHS id badge still hung round her neck she eventually managed to persuade the police to let her go and not impound the car. Im sure if it had been me it would have been taken and i would have been left on a layby on the side of the A19 to find my own way home.    During the conversation she managed to find an email on her phone with her insurance certificate attached, the policeman simply said she could have cancelled it at any ponit in the 3 or so months since it was issued and indeed the database evidence suggests that.  Once home she got on her own insurance companies portal which showed she was insured.  On Wednesday morning she got in touch with the insurance company who said they would update the insurance database, it could take up to 72hours.  Worried about being stopped again she asked them for an email stating she was insured, which she got. After 72 hours nothing had happened and she contacted them again and was fobbed off. Today now over a week since the request she has been fobbed off again...apparently its been passed to the "log it on the database department" and thats all they can do.  It is causing her some considerable anxiety driving to and from work every day knowing that a less understanding policeman may simply conviscate the car as the forst one should have if following the letter of the law.   
The insurance company is Yogi -  im beginning to get worried that we are constantly fobbed off   - the task of adding us to a database would take less time than its took me to type this.  Are they a legitimate company ?...why is this simple task proving so difficult ?. You cannot ring them, they cut you off on their chat page which is the only method of contact. They have a facebook page but that cuts you off too.

CliveOfIndia

It may sound daft, but have you checked that she's actually insured for that specific car, and that the registration number on the insurance certificate is the correct one for that car?

If, for instance, she's insured on another car and is using the DOC cover to drive this car, that won't work - this car needs to be insured by its own policy for the DOC extension to cover her.  Or it may be that one character of the reg number was accidentally entered incorrectly when she took the policy out.

These are both probably fairly unlikely, but definitely worth checking first.

Also, where did you look to see if it's on the database?  AskMid is the official site to check.

Brie

Wouldn't a paper copy of the insurance certificate suffice?  

i do know that there are delays on getting things logged but one would think that 3 months in more than sufficient.  My OH was pulled over about 3 days after renewing and I had to email him something from our computer to show that he had in fact done the renewal.  The police were happy with that.  But given that he is a gentleman of a certain age and a bit of a snazzy dresser driving a honking big Volvo (the epitome of solid honesty) they are likely to believe him.  

DullGreyGuy

They are related to One Call given they are in the same building, same shareholder, same directors, you can see the feedback on here and in the insurance forum on the company on that company.

Both companies are intermediaries and not your actual insurer, that will be identified on the certificate. Either the intermediary or the insurer may be responsible for loading the data to MID.

Brie said:

Wouldn't a paper copy of the insurance certificate suffice?  

i do know that there are delays on getting things logged but one would think that 3 months in more than sufficient.  

 Paper version is no more or les secure than a digital version. Still doesn't prove to the police that the policy hasn't been cancelled. 

MID used to require all personal line cases were logged within 72 hours, you get your adherence rate frequently. If you consistently fail to hit the target you can ultimately be blocked from using MID which effectively blocks you writing UK motor insurance. I had heard that the timescales had gone down but that may not be correct. Commercial vehicles used to have slightly longer due to the more complex setups. 

My client at the time was getting close to the line on the target but that was mainly because they would backdate cancellations if a customer wrote in saying cancel it from Today/Tomorrow and it was processed a week later rather than cancelling it from the date of actioning. 

Ectophile

Under ACPO guidance https://library.college.police.uk/docs/ACPO/ACPO-uninsured-motor-vehicles-2006.pdf , if the motorist can produce evidence that the vehicle is insured, then a police officer should not seize it.  See Section 1.2 (the second condition).

So if you can produce a certificate of insurance to an officer when stopped, it's then up to them to show that the insurance is not valid.

I have just printed out 3 copies of my new motor insurance certificate, and strategically placed them in each of my rucksacks. (I have separate rucksacks for work, leisure and volunteering in case anyone is wondering.  It saves me having to keep taking things in and out of them.)

DullGreyGuy

Ectophile said:

I have just printed out 3 copies of my new motor insurance certificate, and strategically placed them in each of my rucksacks. (I have separate rucksacks for work, leisure and volunteering in case anyone is wondering.  It saves me having to keep taking things in and out of them.)

Why not the glovebox of the car? So only 1 copy needed and covers you when you are rucksackless?

[Deleted User]

Ectophile said:

Under ACPO guidance https://library.college.police.uk/docs/ACPO/ACPO-uninsured-motor-vehicles-2006.pdf , if the motorist can produce evidence that the vehicle is insured, then a police officer should not seize it.  See Section 1.2 (the second condition).

So if you can produce a certificate of insurance to an officer when stopped, it's then up to them to show that the insurance is not valid.

I have just printed out 3 copies of my new motor insurance certificate, and strategically placed them in each of my rucksacks. (I have separate rucksacks for work, leisure and volunteering in case anyone is wondering.  It saves me having to keep taking things in and out of them.)

Unfortunately the police might not accept a printed certificate, and are unlikely to know the ACPO guidance anyway. These are not highly trained professionals we are talking about.

Your best bet is if you can log in to your insurance company's website and bring up your account details, with it showing that car as insured.

Bigwheels1111

First things first, always film the encounter with the police, cover your behind.

Had this threat 3 times in the last 2 years, plus after hearing a noise outside my house at 3am and finding 2 two idiotic morons, sorry police officers that could not read or spell attempting to have my car removed as they believed it was a stolen vehicle.
They had entered the wrong reg into their system. 

The wrong reg on one of the 3 stops also. I asked for proof and he showed me on his comp.
When I said the make model and colour were all wrong he looked a bit confused.

The other 2 were the first 2 or 3 days after renewing insurance and not showing on motor insurance database.
I always carry a printed copy of insurance in the car plus the app on my phone.
Both times I pointed out that Askmid showed it as insured.
But I was very happy for them to dump me and my disabled passenger at the side of the road in her wheelchair at 2am. Then submit a claim against them for deprivation of assets.
And contact the newspapers etc with the video.

[Deleted User]

Yes, thanks for the reminder, always film the encounter. Aside from self protection, it may be useful later when you claim for their bungling idiocy.

born_again

Ectophile said:

Under ACPO guidance https://library.college.police.uk/docs/ACPO/ACPO-uninsured-motor-vehicles-2006.pdf , if the motorist can produce evidence that the vehicle is insured, then a police officer should not seize it.  See Section 1.2 (the second condition).

So if you can produce a certificate of insurance to an officer when stopped, it's then up to them to show that the insurance is not valid.

I have just printed out 3 copies of my new motor insurance certificate, and strategically placed them in each of my rucksacks. (I have separate rucksacks for work, leisure and volunteering in case anyone is wondering.  It saves me having to keep taking things in and out of them.)

Pretty easy. They just ring insurer. 

Mildly_Miffed

[Deleted User] said:

Yes, thanks for the reminder, always film the encounter. Aside from self protection, it may be useful later when you claim for their bungling idiocy.

What did the police do wrong?

They stopped a car that was not on MID as insured.

The driver (eventually) produced insurance paperwork that was still current, but was not proof that the policy had not been cancelled in the interim.
The police explained this, while following ACPO guidelines and letting them continue.

I presume the police tried to contact the insurer, but couldn't. It was a weekday, but was it out of hours?

The issue here is that the insurer have not updated MID as they are required to do.

Moral of the story: Check your own car on askmid.com a week or two after a policy change, and ensure the insurers have recorded it correctly.

I don't think there's many people who would think the police keeping uninsured drivers off the road is a bad thing.