No 3rd-party insurance? States will now send messages to car owners

NEW DELHI: Vehicle owners will now receive messages from the transport department if their vehicle doesn’t have third party insurance or the policy has expired. This is being done to beat the increasing trend of people not renewing thirdparty insurance for their vehicles.

State transport departments with insurance regulator, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), will run a pilot project with some of the states including Karnataka, Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi, which will also alert the first owner to find whether the successive owners have updated their details.

According to Yagnapriya Bharath, CGM of IRDAI, Telangana transport department has already started sending messages to vehicle owners.


“While the Insurance Information Bureau has details of all insured vehicles, the Central government’s Vahan database has details of all registered vehicles. The transport departments can easily find out which vehicles have no insurance by simply comparing the data from these two sources,” she shared at a workshop organised by General Insurance Council.

She said messages are sent to the mobile numbers linked to the vehicle registration number. “In case you have sold your vehicle, but still receive messages you can try to track down the new owner. Otherwise, the challans for offences committed by the new owner will keep landing at your address. This has proved to be beneficial to many in Telangana where the project has started,” an official said.

Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari also told general insurance industry leaders that the government is taking several initiatives to increase third-party insurance coverage, which is crucial for road safety. “Once the enforcement of higher penalty for driving uninsured vehicles intensifies, people will mend their ways,” he added.