NEW DELHI: Vehicle owners will now receive messages from the transport department if their vehicle doesn’t have third party insurance or the policy has expired.

Insurance regulator, IRDAI, will run a pilot project with some of the states including Karnataka, Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi, which will also alert the first owner to find whether the successive owners have updated their details.

“Telangana transport department has already started sending messages to the vehicle owners. While the Insurance Information Bureau has details of all insured vehicles, the Central government’s Vahan database has details of all registered vehicles. The transport departments can easily find out which vehicles have no insurance by simply comparing the data from these two sources,” said Yagnapriya Bharath, CGM of IRDAI while addressing a workshop on role of general insurance in road safety.

She said messages are sent to the mobile numbers linked to the vehicle registration number. “In case you have sold your vehicle, but still receive messages you can try to track down the new owner. Otherwise, the challans for offences committed by the new owner will keep landing at your address. This has proved to be beneficial to many in Telangana where the project has started,” an official said.

Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari told general insurance industry leaders that the government is taking several initiatives to increase third-party insurance coverage. He said in 2018, the Supreme Court had also made two-wheeler insurance compulsory for five years and four wheeler insurance for three years for new vehicles.

Highlighting how vehicles without insurance have been a major cause of concern, IRDAI member TL Alamelu said currently at least 40% of the vehicles on road don’t have the mandatory third-party insurance cover. “Nearly 80% of two-wheelers don’t have the insurance cover,” she pointed out.

Officials from General Insurance Council also cited how the insurance coverage of vehicles is more prevalent in urban areas (nearly 89%) due to presence of traffic police and other enforcement agencies.

Under the third-party insurance provision, the responsibility of compensating an accident victim shifts from vehicle owner to the insurance company.