The National Insurance Commission, which regulates Ghana’s insurance sector, says it has already issued half a million motor insurance stickers using the newly introduced Motor Insurance Database, MID.

According to the NIC, over time, the Motor Insurance Database will help to completely eliminate the phenomenon of fake insurance stickers.

Speaking to Citi Business News, the Head of Supervision at the NIC, Seth Eshun, said although over a 1.5 million cars are issued roadworthy certificates each year by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, DVLA, only a fraction of that number has motor insurance, a disparity the MID seeks to correct.

“Almost 1.5 million cars are given road worthy certificates. But over the last three to four years, the number of cars that are actually insured by the industry is 0.8 million, and so one of the main reasons why we brought in the Motor Insurance Database is to get a system where the difference between cars with road worthy licenses and cars that have insurance is basically negligible.”

“Currently, we have half a million so, everything been equal we expect something around the region of a million. So, that means there’s still scope for us to improve. The key things that we seek to do is to collaborate a lot more with DVLA and we believe that if we collaborate with DVLA and the police, then we can ensure that the cars on the roads are insured,” he said.

Earlier this year, the Commission caused the arrest of a number of people issuing fake motor insurance stickers. These include a 72 year old insurance Agent, Nana Kodua Marfoh, for submitting fake documents to the Kumasi Area Office of the National Insurance Commission (NIC).

Two Agents of MILLENNIUM INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED have also been arrested for possessing fake ALLIANZ INSURANCE sticker booklets also at the premises of the same Kumasi DVLA Office.

The Motor Insurance Database

The Motor Insurance Database was implemented on January 1, 2020. It was introduced to provide a centralized system from which security agencies and the general public including passengers of vehicles can check the validity of a vehicle insurance instantaneously.

The checks can be done through the use of a mobile phone, receipt of acknowledgement of transaction via a text message or by scanning a QR code on the insurance sticker by the Police MTTD.

The new system also enables the police and other interested parties to check on the spot the legitimacy of a vehicle’s motor insurance, by simply dialing a code.

Statistics from the NIC has shown that out of 2.3 million vehicles registered in 2018; only one million were issued with genuine motor insurance stickers.