Background:
The Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI), Insurance Ireland and insurers have been working on a project to create a central insurance database, which is referred to as the “Irish Motor Insurance Database” (IMID).
This central database is designed to help identify the insurance status of all vehicles and will be used by the MIBI, the Department of Transport and An Garda Síochána, as part of their role of enforcing insurance requirement in the Road Traffic Act.
The overall objective is to reduce the high level of uninsured vehicles on the road, which is estimated by the MIBI to be about 7.5% of all vehicles. This is considerably higher than other EU countries and the UK.
The IMID is comprised of data from two separate databases, the Motor Third Party Liability (MTPL) database (which contains data on private motor & small commercial policies) and the National Fleet Database (NFD) (which will contain data on fleet and motor trade policies).
The data is collected by the MIBI as set out in Section 78A of the Road Traffic Act and the Road Traffic and Roads Bill (2021) which is due to be passed by the Oireachtas in November, 2022. Motor policy data is currently being uploaded to the IMID on a nightly basis by insurers or their representatives.
At this stage, the IMID holds about 2.9m private motor and small commercial vehicles and information on over 5 million named drivers that are permitted to drive those vehicles. This information will be very useful to Roads Policing Gardai when carrying out vehicle stops on our roads.
The Next Stage
The next stage is to commence uploading fleet and motor trade vehicle registrations to the NFD.
In preparation for this, most fleet insurers have commenced uploading high level fleet data to the NFD, including policy numbers, policy holder names and other high level policy details.
In a small number of cases, insurers are uploading vehicle registrations to the NFD where they are provided by fleet and motor traders to insurers; however, as most fleets are written on a declaration basis, insurers may only be told the number of vehicles in a fleet, but not the individual vehicle registrations until year end declarations
Going forward, fleet and motor traders will be required to provide the registration numbers for each of the vehicles in their fleet within 14 days of a vehicle being added or removed from the fleet, provided that the vehicle(s) will remain in the fleet for more than 14 days. This means that temporary additions to the fleet will not have to be uploaded to the NFD (if vehicles are not intended to remain on cover in the fleet for more than 14 days).
Where may Policyholders access information?
A copy of the NFD User Information and Q&A document can now be accessed at this link https://mibi.ie/about-us/imid.2054.html on the MIBI website. The Questions and Answers section will evolve over time. Accessing using the link will mean you will see the latest version available.
How do fleet and motor trade policy holders upload data to the NFD?
The MIBI has created a website to allow vehicle registrations to be uploaded to the NFD by policy holders. The website can be accessed at the following link https://nfd.mtpl.ie/ where policy holders can register to get access to the NFD.
Users must input their policy number and fleet Unique Identifier (UID) as part of the registration process. If they receive a registration error, they should check with their Broker/Insurer to ensure that the UID and Policy Number is valid in accordance with what is on the insurer’s system.
Note: Only one person can register on the NFD from each organisation (Fleet or Motor Trader); however, once registered, this person can set up additional users who can update the list of vehicle on the NFD.
The MIBI website has help documentation and short videos available in the help section to assist users. Please also see NFD User Guide and Q&A document, which is available on the MIBI website at the following link https://mibi.ie/about-us/imid.2054.html
Once registered, users can upload vehicle registrations individually on the NFD or they can use an Excel template (available from the help section) to upload a larger number of vehicles.
When should you start to upload data to the NFD?
The MIBI plan to start onboarding fleet and motor trade policy holders to the NFD in October, 2022. They need to start in October due to the large numbers involved as the process has to be completed by the 31st March 2023, when they plan to start sharing data with An Garda Síochána.
It is important that fleet owners and motor traders plan for this as early as possible so that they have a process in place to maintain their vehicles on the NFD. If not, then they risk their vehicles being stopped by the Gardai when they start to use the data. They also risk prosecution in the District Court and incurring Class C fines of up to €2,500 if they fail to upload their data to the NFD.
