As the electronic verification may turn into reality very soon, uninsured drivers may be in for a rude shock in West Virginia. Many have gotten away for years now, by just taking temporary insurance. These are also dubbed as the 90-day wonders by some people. This is done to keep the liability going until such time where they can get their registration card renewed, after which the coverage is dropped.
There are those who even buy shorter terms of liability cover, states Steve Dale, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Motor Vehicles.
According to a report by the Insurance Research Council, the national average of uninsured drivers is 13.8% and West Virginia presently stands at 11% among other states.
Dale was quoted as saying that while they are not the top uninsured motorists’ state as per the study, but he would still suggest that the rate is probably much higher than what the statistics suggest.
He also added that all it takes was just one involvement of an uninsured driver in a car crash, and that was sufficient to increase the costs of insurance even for the majority of drivers in West Virginia, who are responsible enough to obtain insurance.
It is the stipulated 20-40-10 policy according to the West Virginia law – which means $20,000 for one-injury accident, $40,000 for a two-injury accident, and $10,000 for property damage.
With the enactment of the new law, the DMV seems to inching closer to the electronic verification process in auto insurance which may soon become a reality.
At the moment, the state agency is gaining strides to get to that.
This spring, most drivers noticed that there was a change in the registration renewal forms – there was a line at the bottom end that asked them to provide their NAIC number – which is normally kept by the carriers so, DMV can confirm the coverage.
Dale was quoted as saying that they might just run the whole database on a weekly basis to see who had dropped insurance. This will also help law enforcement agencies to get to know in real time, if a vehicle was covered by auto insurance during a traffic stop.
The addition of the NAIC number has actually come ahead of time on these renewal forms, as this is the national code that is used by the insurance commissioners in order to identify each and every insurance company, said Dale. By the 1st of June, 2013, all insurance companies will be part of the online verification system.
