You Must Keep The MID Updated If You Are A Motor Trader

Motor insurance law has changed and unless the vehicle you own (and is registered in your name), has been declared as ‘SORN’ and has a DVLA Statutory Off Road Notification (and therefore is officially ‘off road’) then it must be insured at all times.

Tackling Uninsured Drivers

If you are not insured or have not declared your vehicle as SORN, your insurance policy record will not appear on the Motor Insurance Database (MID), which means you can expect to receive a warning letter – followed by a fixed penalty fine for no insurance. Those who drive without adequate insurance or no insurance cover are costing the UK motorist £500 million per year. This means that every insurance policy sold in the UK includes an amount to pay for these uninsured drivers. To tackle this issue head on, the insurance industry and the Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) developed the Motor Insurance Database (MID).

A Central Database Of All Insured Vehicles

The MID is the only central record of all insured vehicles in the UK and holds the insurance records of over 34 million vehicles. It is used by the police and DVLA to enforce the law. It is updated over 10,000 times an hour. The police use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology with information from the MID to identify and catch people driving uninsured vehicles (insurers are readily identified using just the registration number). More than 500 are seized every day and every three minutes one person is convicted for uninsured driving.

Motor Traders & The MID

For motor traders it’s important to add all vehicles insured on your motor trade policy and all trade plates owned by you to the Motor Insurance Database (MID). Thus demonstrating to the authorities that you have a motor insurance policy in place which covers you. This includes permanent vehicles registered to, owned by, or leased to you, and other temporary vehicles in your possession. Vehicles kept less than 14 days do not necessarily need to be added to the database. Customers’ vehicles whilst in your custody or control for your motor trade business should also be included where applicable. It is a legal obligation of the policyholder to ensure that vehicle details are kept up to date and all vehicle records are kept for a period of 7 years. It is a criminal offence if you fail to comply with these regulations with a possible maximum fine of £5,000. Regulations also state that any detail needing to be updated to the Motor Insurance Database (MID) should be done so immediately.

Checking & Updating The MID

You are able to check the Motor Insurance Database for free to see if you have a valid insurance record at www.askMID.com. If you want to update your MID listings but are not sure how, check out our MID Updates page.