Greenaway report summary and recommendations

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Greenaway report summary and recommendations:

Summary

1.1 All motorists are legally obliged to be insured against third party risks before driving a motor vehicle. Not all are insured. In the UK it is estimated that one in twenty motorists drive without insurance. This incidence is high relative to some, though not all, member states in the EU.

1.2 Uninsured drivers impose a financial burden on honest motorists. The damage they inflict in road traffic accidents results in claims against the Motor Insurers' Bureau or against the policies of insured drivers. Industry estimates suggest this adds around £30 on average to the annual premium of honest motorists.

1.3 In addition, uninsured driving imposes other costs on society as a result of these drivers being more likely to be involved in road traffic accidents, more likely to be non-compliant with other road traffic requirements and obligations and potentially involved in other criminal activity.

1.4 There is no single ‘cause' of uninsured driving, nor is there a single solution. Reducing its incidence will require a range of complementary measures that will not only strengthen enforcement of the legal obligation but make that obligation more transparent and detection of non-compliance more effective.

1.5 In conducting this review, extensive consultation with all key stakeholders was undertaken: those who sell insurance; those who set the legal framework within which it applies; those who enforce the legal requirement; those who have to deal with the consequences of uninsured driving.

1.6 Consultation revealed not only widespread and deep frustration at the extent and consequences of uninsured driving, but a real hunger to see action to reduce its incidence.

1.7 This review recommends a package of measures which include: actions designed to increase awareness of the insurance requirement, especially among young drivers; actions which could make third party insurance more affordable to young drivers; actions designed to increase dramatically the chances of those who choose to drive uninsured being caught; actions which increase the costs of driving uninsured on those who are caught.

1.8 The measures proposed are complementary to each other and to other current public policy initiatives. Moreover, they are also measures that are practical and implementable in a reasonable timeframe. If implemented, the measures can be expected to have a significant impact on the incidence of uninsured driving in the UK.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: The current widespread practice of condoning any apparent grace period for renewal of lapsed motor insurance policies should be discontinued and insurance providers should enforce the insurance requirement on a continuous basis.

Recommendation 2: Insurance providers should be required to collect systematically and report information on claims which they settle directly relating to incidents involving uninsured drivers in order to improve information capture on the scale and costs of the problem.

Recommendation 3: The purpose of, and legal requirement for, third party insurance should feature much more prominently in the Highway Code and driving theory test than at present.

Recommendation 4: Government and the industry should co-operate to initiate a programme of awareness raising of the requirement for third party insurance, the risks of driving uninsured and the consequences of doing so. This should coincide with the implementation of measures to increase detection.

Recommendation 5: Since young drivers are a particularly high-risk group, targeted initiatives could also be helpful. The school-based programme currently sponsored by the Motor Accidents Solicitors' Society is an example of good practice here.

Recommendation 6: The insurance industry should continue to develop products which price young drivers into the market earlier, provide incentives to them to gain driving experience and see the benefits of that experience in terms of the premiums they pay.

Recommendation 7: The insurance industry and Department for Transport should co-operate in building an easily navigable and searchable insurance portal on the DVLA and DSA web sites, which reminds clients of their legal responsibility for third party insurance, provides rapid access to information on insurance premia and links to on-line purchase facilities.

Recommendation 8: Appropriate changes in the Police Bill should be made, or the next available legislative opportunity taken, to provide police forces with full and unrestricted access to the motor insurance database (MID).

Recommendation 9: MID should be fully integrated with the police national computer in the same way as DVLA's vehicle register.

Recommendation 10: The roll-out of automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) should be accelerated to ensure that more police forces have access to the technology to underpin enhanced detection and enforcement.

Recommendation 11: Fixed penalties paid by those caught driving without insurance should be retained to help fund accelerated roll-out of ANPR.

Recommendation 12: Before being accredited to write motor insurance business, providers should be required not only to sign-up to their Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) levy but also to demonstrate to the appropriate regulatory authority that they have the capacity required to comply with rapid data entry to MID.

Recommendation 13: The permitted interval between an insurance policy being issued and details uploaded in the MID should be reduced from 14 days to seven days by the end of 2006, with a target of 100% compliance. Moreover, a target date by which real time data entry will be implemented should be set, at no later than the end of 2008.

Recommendation 14: More severe penalties should be implemented and applied for non-compliance with these targets.

Recommendation 15: To minimise the scope for fraudulent behaviour, arrangements for notification of cancellation of insurance should be altered to require insurers to notify MID and DVLA immediately of any policy cancellation, with appropriate penalties for non-compliance.

Recommendation 16: Insurance of the individual driver rather than insurance of the vehicle should continue to be the basis for third party liability cover in the UK.

Recommendation 17: Every motor insurance policy which is issued should contain information on both the insured driver(s) and the vehicle(s) they are insured to drive, in order to ensure that the relevant agencies can confidently use the MID to enforce insurance from the record.

Recommendation 18: Sentencing guidelines for Magistrates should be revised to require a minimum fine for uninsured driving which exceeds the fixed penalty.

Recommendation 19: A review should be undertaken of the non-fiscal penalties which could be made available to magistrates in dealing with uninsured drivers.

Recommendation 20: Police forces should be given the power to seize and, in appropriate circumstances, destroy vehicles that are being driven uninsured.