Motorists may only become aware after police has stopped them for driving without insurance

Cars in the street

Motorists driving without insurance as a result of the SSP outage may not be aware of the issue until they get stopped by police, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) has warned.

The MIB said motorists whose policies may be affected by the SSP outage may only become aware will be if a police officer stops them as there is no record of their insurance on the MID.

The bureau confirmed that it received its first written from SSP today following the power outage it suffered on Friday.

Since then many brokers have taken to social media to express their anger at not being able to access their back-office systems or emails.

MIB head of enforcement services Neil Drane said: “As soon as SSP has been able to restore its systems to normal then we can work with them to ensure that the records relating to customers on auto-renewal are restored on the Motor Insurance Database (MID).

“This is an unusual situation as the scale of the problem is difficult for SSP to quantify at this stage.

“Motorists whose policies may be affected by the SSP outage won’t be aware of the issue and the first time they may become aware will be if a police officer stops them as there is no record of their insurance on the MID.”

MIB’s said it contact centre agents will continue to support police officers at the roadside through its enquiries with insurers and brokers.