Compensation for seized vehicles as insurance database woes continue

The fleet industry is still experiencing issues with a new insurance database despite assurances technical problems would be rectified.  

The issues plaguing the Motor Insurers Bureau’s (MIB) move to a new database system have continued for nearly a month.

The MIB launched its new Navigate cloud platform to house data from its database on April 30, but experienced issues with submitting new vehicle records into the system after this date. 

It meant some new vehicles were missing from the Motor Insurance Database (MID), so would appear to be uninsured if stopped by the authorities.

Fleet News understands the MIB has now set up a compensation scheme to deal with vehicles that are seized due to missing information on the MID.

MIB has informed insurers that it will reimburse any reasonable compensation paid by insurers to their customers under their complaints handling process where it can be shown that an erroneous seizure was a direct result of the challenges in uploading data to Navigate. Insurers have been informed on how to apply for this.

The MIB was hoping to get all the technical issues with submitting new data fixed by May 17, but confirmed to Fleet News that it managed to clear the backlog of files, which needed to be transferred into Navigate, by May 23.

A spokesperson for the MIB told Fleet News: “There are no vehicle files older than 24 hours waiting to be processed into Navigate.

“We're now processing data into Navigate within the same time frames as we did previously into the MID.”

However, Fleet News has been told by an industry insider from a major UK leasing company that the MIB held a webinar on Thursday (May 23) where it acknowledged there are still ongoing issues with the new Navigate system, which it described as “the largest technical implementation in the MIB’s history”.

Fleet News understands the search function for commercial policyholders has been turned back on and is working, but the error rate “remains disproportionately high”.

It said the MIB's biggest priority is working on why there are a higher number of rejects than normal through this process and fixing it.

The industry insider said: “The problems with Navigate are certainly not resolved and multiple issues are being encountered while we try to make updates in terms of additions and terminations through uploading files using the new Navigate system.”

The main issue is the inability to upload update files to make sure new vehicles coming on cover are added and de-fleeted vehicles can be removed.

The industry insider added: “We receive error messages about invalid insurance policies even though they are correct and invalid formats of registration number.”

The leasing company confirmed a driver had been stopped by police for having no insurance, when this was not correct.

There is a manual workaround to update each vehicle individually, but for large fleets this is a “time consuming task”, exacerbated by the unavailability of the new system from April 26, meaning a back log of updates has built up.

MIB has now set up a helpdesk for all users of MID to contact them directly with information on issues being encountered.

The MIB’s presentation to insurers on May 23, seen by Fleet News, said the move to Navigate was deemed necessary due to the previous 23-year-old system not being “fit for purpose, with stability issues and limited functionality for users”.

However, it said some customers are still experiencing performance issues with Navigate’s search functionality for vehicle updates or claims enquiries.

These are intermittent performance issues causing searches to time out and/or freeze.

When some policyholders are submitting vehicle updates, in some cases files are getting stuck in the state of ‘in processing’ and manual intervention is then required to resolve the issue.

Some commercial insurance policyholders have also reported to MIB that not all policies are visible in their Navigate management portal.

This is resulting in policyholders being unable to manage vehicle cover details “accurately”.

A spokesperson for the MIB said that following the launch of Navigate, there have been “intermittent performance issues with the portal”.

The MIB explained that some services were temporarily suspended for brief periods while the organisation investigated and resolved those issues.

The spokesperson added: “We acknowledge the challenges this brings to fleet and commercial users.

“We continue to offer support for insurer and DA (delegated authority) helpdesk teams to support these users.”

In terms of data submission, the MIB said the “vast majority of files containing records are being processed as we would expect”.

The MIB confirmed that some insurers are seeing “an increased level of rejections with the data they are submitting and we’re working to investigate why this is”.

The MIB spokespersons said: “We have confirmed to customers via regular updates that we’re adopting a fix forward approach and have performed a thorough assessment of known issues and prioritised those with the greatest impact on customers.

“We share users’ frustration that we are still experiencing intermittent issues with certain aspects of Navigate and both MIB and our technical partner Wipro continue to work tirelessly to resolve them.”

The MID reiterated that modernising the platforms holding insurance data is a key priority for the organisation and that the re-platforming of Navigate “is just the beginning”.

It is planning to modernise its Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register (MIAFTR) later this year.