No VIN to blame: law-abiding car owners face fines from cameras
Checking the availability of a CTP policy with the help of photovideofixation complexes for traffic violations threatens to send fines to law-abiding drivers. Millions of motorists who did not specify the license plate number of the car at the conclusion of the contract may be at risk, experts and lawyers say. Insurers promise that after the launch of the avtograzhdanka camera check, the system will work correctly. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Identification difficulties
In early November, an accident occurred in the Moscow region: a carsharing car crashed into several cars parked along the road. As follows from the materials about the car accident (copies of them are available to Izvestia), the culprit of the accident, who was driving a rental car, fled the scene. A check on the official website of the National Insurance Information System (NSIS) for the license plate number of the vehicle showed that at the time of the incident, the CTP policy for the carsharing vehicle had the status "Terminated".
Later it turned out that another CTP policy was issued for this vehicle, which was valid at the time of the accident. However, since the state registration plate (GRZ) of the car was not specified in it, the CTP contract was not displayed when checked against the NSIS database by state number. This information was confirmed to Izvestia by the insurance company that issued the policy.
—We checked the VIN, found the number of the CTP policy: there are no problems with the policy, it is valid, and, according to the NSIS, it is also listed as valid on November 6," Renaissance Insurance told Izvestia in response to a corresponding request.
At the same time, the "invisibility" of this contract in the system may be due to the lack of information about the license plate number of the car, representatives of the insurer noted.
As the NSIS press service told Izvestia, in the database of the State Traffic Inspectorate, each vehicle has information on all identifiers (number, VIN, body number, chassis, etc.). There may not be a license plate in the NSIS database, but there is a VIN, the press service of the insurance information system operator noted.
According to Nikolay Galushin, head of the NSIS, insurers now transmit information on at least one vehicle identifier to the insurance AIS when concluding a CTP agreement. This can be the license plate number, VIN, as well as the body number or chassis number. Therefore, if the vehicle's VIN has not been transferred, then when searching for information in the system, it will not be possible to find a CTP policy for it, he noted. A similar situation arises if the state registration mark was not specified at the conclusion of the CTP contract: since the insurer did not provide information about it, then there is simply nowhere for it to go in the system, Nikolai Galushin emphasized.
Applying a VIN number
— Today, insurers have the right to transfer only one vehicle identifier to the Insurance AIS. This rule is established in the regulatory documents of the Bank of Russia. A year later [after the conclusion of the insurance contract], when the CTP policy is renewed, the data on such a vehicle will be synchronized both in the insurer's information system and in the insurance AIS — both the license plate number of the car and its VIN will appear," Nikolai Galushin told Izvestia.
The Russian Union of Motor Insurers (RSA) recognizes that there are situations when a car does not yet have a state registration plate when signing a CTP contract, since the car has not yet been registered with the State Traffic Inspectorate.
— At the same time, after registration of the vehicle, the policyholder must inform the insurer about the state registration number, after which the insurer enters the relevant data into the CTP agreement. Information about the CTP contract (primary and adjusted) is transmitted to the AIS insurance, operated by JSC NSIS," the press service of the RSA emphasized.
Millions are under attack
The vast majority of motorists simply do not know about this duty, says Anton Shaparin, vice-president of the National Automobile Union. And taking into account the announced launch of checking the availability of CTP policies using traffic cameras, millions of law-abiding Russian motorists who have issued insurance are at risk of receiving fines for allegedly not having insurance, he believes. First of all, buyers of new cars may be at risk, the NAS vice president notes.
— According to statistics, since the beginning of the year, Russians have already purchased more than 1 million new cars. And most often, when buying a new car at a car dealership, a person registers a CTP at the dealership itself. Of course, in such a situation, the license plate cannot be specified in the policy, since the number itself is not yet available. And only the VIN of the car appears in the insurance. However, the camera can identify a vehicle only by its license plate number. And since it is not in the insurers' information system, after the launch of CTP monitoring using traffic violation photo—recording systems, the cameras will assume that such a car is driving without insurance," Anton Shaparin emphasized.
Maxim Kadakov, the editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, agrees with him. He also believes that due to the out-of-sync between VINS and state numbers in the insurers' database, the launch of a CTP policy check can turn into problems for law-abiding drivers. He also believes that a significant number of motorists who have taken out insurance but for one reason or another have not indicated the car number may be at risk.
Everything must be reported
Igor Morzharetto, a member of the Presidium of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, does not exclude certain difficulties and errors when launching the CTP check by cameras. At the same time, he believes, in the event of a fine for allegedly not having insurance, the motorist who issued the policy can cancel it without any problems.
— In fact, the insurance has been issued, it is in the hands of the driver. Accordingly, there is no traffic violation in this case. Accordingly, the fine will definitely be canceled when contacting the State Traffic Inspectorate. Moreover, it can now be done online, through the Gosuslugi portal," he noted.
Igor Morzharetto also recalled the obligation of the car owner to inform the insurer about the license plate number of the car after its registration, prescribed in the "Rules of compulsory insurance of civil liability of vehicle owners" approved by the Central Bank. According to this document, the motorist is given three days from the moment of registration of the vehicle with the State Traffic Inspectorate.
There really shouldn't be any problems with the cancellation of such fines, agrees Sergey Radko, a lawyer for the Freedom of Choice movement. But in order to avoid unnecessary hassle with their cancellation, he also recommends that drivers who have taken out insurance before registering a car with the State Traffic Inspectorate inform the insurance company about the license plates they have received and enter this data into the policy and information system.
— Otherwise, after starting the CTP check through the cameras, the driver, whose insurance policy does not specify the license plate number of the car, runs the risk of receiving a fine for the alleged absence of a "car citizen" once a day. And he will have to cancel each such fine separately, — Sergey Radko emphasized.
Synchronization is required
Cancellation of fines, as well as the need to visit the insurer to provide him with information about the license plate number of the car, is an additional hassle for car owners who have already fulfilled the statutory obligation to insure their civil liability, Anton Shaparin believes. In his opinion, to avoid a potential problem with incorrect registration of fines for the alleged absence of CTP, you can additionally configure and synchronize the parameters by which the camera will check their presence, he is sure.
— It is necessary that if there is no data on the registration plate of the car in the database of issued CTP policies, it automatically checks the VIN number. This will ensure the so-called seamless transmission of information and eliminate fines for drivers who have this insurance. However, this will put an additional burden on the system itself," the NAS vice president told Izvestia.
It is according to this scheme that CTP policies will be checked using cameras after the launch of this procedure, the NSIS told Izvestia. Even if there is no number in the insurance AIS, the driver will not receive a fine, the press service of the insurance information system operator assured.
— We will receive a request from the State Traffic Inspectorate for the license plate number of the car, which was recorded by a traffic camera. Further, through the interface of two information systems, ours and the traffic police, all information on the car (registration plate and VIN) will be collected, the number of the CTP policy and its validity period will be pulled up on the date of the vehicle's passage under the camera that recorded it, Nikolai Galushin told Izvestia about the proposed scheme of the control mechanism for the presence of insurance with the help of photovideofixation complexes for traffic violations.
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