New chairman wants levies to reflect rising personal injury claims
Insurers can expect to pay higher contributions to the Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB), its new chairman said.
Simon Machell, who was elected last week, told Insurance Times that insurers' levies would reflect the trend for rising personal injury claims.
The MIB pays out to the victims of uninsured drivers and insurers pay a levy to the organisation based on their motor premium income.
Machell, who is claims director of Norwich Union, said the MIB had its most effective tool for tackling uninsured drivers in a database of car registrations and insurance details.
It allows police to check if a vehicle is insured.
Introduced last year for personal lines, it is due to be expanded to cover commercial lines by the end of this year or early next year.
Machell said it was "too early" to report a reduction in claims attributable to the system and could not predict its effect on the numbers of uninsured drivers or insurers' levies to the MIB.
But he said: "The most important thing is to make the database work as well as it can. It's the most effective tool we've had for some time."
The MIB is also lobbying the government for stiffer penalties for uninsured drivers. The average fine is currently about £215 together with a maximum of eight points on the driver's licence. There is the possibility of up to a year's imprisonment.
For many drivers the level of the fine is likely to be less than the cost of insurance.
Machell said: "We need to make it worthwhile to insure."
Claims on the MIB
