Road caution: 38 m non-insured vehicles added every year

Insurance council plans to set up Indian Motor Bureau

New Delhi, July 14 Here is an interesting statistic. On an average, around 78 million vehicles are sold every year across the country but the number of motor insurance polices which are renewed the following year drops to around 40 million.

In other words, almost 38 million vehicles join the growing number of non-insured machines on Indian roads every year.

Baulked by this statistic, the General Insurance Council plans to address this problem by creating a nodal agency to monitor the non-insured vehicles in the country. It is planning to set up the Indian Motor Bureau, on the same lines as the one which exists in the United Kingdom.

Motor bureau

“UK has one of the worst records for uninsured driving, with an estimated one in every 20 cars on the road being driven without insurance, and in India we are not far behind. So to help curb this practice we are looking at creating the Indian Motor Bureau. The process is in the developmental stage and by the middle of next month we expect to have something concrete on the issue.

“We need consent of all the RTOs and also need to get permission from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority,” insurance industry sources told Business Line.

Stolen vehicle records

Apart from this, the Bureau would also keep a record of all the vehicles which are stolen. “A number of times stolen vehicles are reregistered and sold without the knowledge of the insurance companies or the police. So to make it difficult for this practice to continue, the Bureau, once it receives a complaint regarding a lost vehicle, can alert the concerned RTO so that the vehicle is not registered in someone else’s name.

“For example, in the UK the police is the biggest customer of the Motor Insurance Database, making close to three million enquiries every month,” he said.

The Bureau will also look at making the underwriting related to motor insurance more scientific.

Source: The Hindu Business Line