Insurers have to submit all vehicle insurance details to the Motor Insurance Database (MID) by January 20 2003.
Members of the Motor Insurers' Information Centre (MIIC) said yesterday that this was to achieve compliance with the 4th EU Motor Directive.
The legislation, which is yet to be published, will state that documenting the nformation will be a legal obligation.
MIIC's programme manager Donald Martin said the 4th Directive would, "help dentify relevant insurers quickly, put claimants in touch with claims representatives and improve claims handling for all EU citizens abroad."
He said the MID was launched in September 2001 and Phase 1 dealt with individual vehicle insurance. "We put 25m vehicles on the database," he said.
Martin said Phase 2 concerns fleet policyholders and 4m more vehicles needed to be added to the MID.
He said this was "much more of a challenge," because the information was "not traditionally held by insurers".
