Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has lauded the regulatory and supervisory body of the insurance services sector, the National Insurance Commission (NIC) for its implementation of the Motor Insurance Database policy.

According to him, the era of fake insurance stickers and certificates is over and the general public, including law enforcement officers on roads, can now check the insurance status of a vehicle through a mobile device.

The decision comes after the NIC issued a directive to all motor insurance companies on January 20 to cancel the issuance of manual stickers and replace them with an electronic one unto its new Motor Insurance Database system.

The move by the commission is to get rid of fake motor insurance stickers that are plying the roads and ensure the safety of lives and property.

The National Insurance Commission (NIC) however says it is expecting all insurance companies to furnish it with information on all insurance policy holders by the end of the first quarter this year.

In ensuring full compliance of the directive, Commissioner of Insurance, Justice Yaw Ofori has explained that his outfit will allow an extension for insurance companies to provide information unto the MID.

“The new policies and vehicles licensed this year are all being issued electronic stickers from the Motor Insurance Database. We have some policies that were written since January 1, 2019 and this is what we call historic data, they’re bulky and some of them need to be fine-tuned because they are some errors in them before they’re uploaded into the database”

“Once that is done, all old vehicles that were ensured from January 1, 2019 will be uploaded unto the system and we’d have records of them. Some companies have theirs fully and others are in the process and I believe that in about a week or so we should be able to have all this information in our database”

“We gave a deadline for January 31 but like any technology when it comes out you might have some challenges in migrating both systems but we’re keen on addressing these challenges,” he assured.

Head of Supervision at the NIC, Seth Eshun on his part said that regulator has so far issued some 56,000 new stickers following the implementation of the Motor Insurance Database (MID) policy that was introduced on January 1.

According to him, the commission expects the number to somewhat increase by the close of the week despite a few teething challenges that are being addressed.