Vehicle Modifications, DVLA and Insurance

[atthelimit]

Someone sent me a PM about this but I thought I would share the answer with the wider community.

The question was, When insurers are notified of alterations/modifications do they advise the DVLA through the MID system,

Answer No.

When you think about it's just impractical. Solid drive shafts and a change from dynamo to alternator are changes insurers should be notified about, outside of Lotus circles the fitting of a winch to a 4x4 or just aftermarket alloy wheels on any car are modifications insurers should know about but DVLA simply would not be able to deal with all this information. Then you have heavily modified but road legal cars like rally cars, and track day cars with big brakes, uprated engines, lowered suspension etc. and it would be an impossible task, what is relevant for an insurer and what is relevant to DVLA are different issues. Insurers want to know of a dynamo change, DVLA would not.

Systems are much more integrated than ever before with ANPR systems and such like but they are restricted to things like, is it insured, yes/no, does it have an MOT, yes/no, is it taxed, yes/no, is it sorned, yes/no. Not, is the policy any driver, does it include business use, is the car modified etc. If the authorities want to know this they get in touch with the insurers, so if you have wide wheels, flared arches and a roll cage the police may well check to see if it's all been declared, subtle solid drive shafts, unlikely. If the driver is not the car owner they will try to find out if the driver is insured, if not on the owners policy, then is he/she covered on their own policy.

No system could cope with the minute details and the volume of information would make it impossible for DVLA to use their systems for this purpose. This is where the self declaration system comes in.

Kim