Wrong colour paper means one million people have illegal documents
One million people who bought motor cover through the AA are holding illegal insurance certificates - because they are printed on the wrong colour paper.
The bright yellow cover notes and certificates may match the AA's corporate logo, but they have fallen foul of a law specifically banning such bright hues.
In fact, the Motor Vehicles (Third Party Risks) Regulations 1972 insist all car insurance certificates "shall be printed in black on white paper or similar material".
A government spokeswoman said: "We've written to the AA and it will be stopped."
The Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions may have halted the AA's favoured hue, but it stopped short of insisting on reissues.
The spokeswoman said: "The certificates are illegal, but the policies still hold. Motor insurance certificates are saying there is a valid policy and the policy itself still stands.
"What isn't valid is the certificate, due to an error on the part of the AA."
AA Insurance Services (AAIS), which boasts of having one million motor policyholders and being the UK's largest motor insurance intermediary, will start issuing certificates printed in sober black on white.
An AA spokeswoman said the company had ordered new watermarked paper and would use it for new certificates as soon as it arrived.
The yellow effect had been chosen to help prevent fraud as well as matching the corporate colours.
AAIS sells cover underwritten by a panel of about 20 insurers including Norwich Union, Royal & SunAlliance, AXA and Churchill.
