Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

One in every five ve­hi­cles on the na­tion’s roads is unin­sured, ac­cord­ing to es­ti­mates from the As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T In­sur­ance Com­pa­nies (AT­TIC).

“It is con­ser­v­a­tive­ly es­ti­mat­ed that as many as 20 per cent of ve­hi­cles on our roads may be unin­sured,” AT­TIC stat­ed.

AT­TIC made the state­ment as it com­mend­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for the re­cent ap­pre­hen­sion of an al­leged per­pe­tra­tor of mo­tor in­sur­ance cer­tifi­cate fraud.

It has been re­port­ed that in­di­vid­ual was re­spon­si­ble for the is­suance of at least 90 ful­ly com­pre­hen­sive and third-par­ty fraud­u­lent mo­tor in­sur­ance cer­tifi­cates.

“The vic­tims of these fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties would not have on­ly been de­fraud­ed of the pre­mi­ums paid to this in­di­vid­ual but would have been unin­sured and there­fore would not have been com­pen­sat­ed in event of an ac­ci­dent,” AT­TIC stat­ed.

AT­TIC said it un­der­stands that the cer­tifi­cates is­sued to these vic­tims bore the “of­fi­cial” stamp of a lo­cal gen­er­al in­sur­ance com­pa­ny.

To avoid be­com­ing a vic­tim to this type of fraud, AT­TIC cau­tioned dri­vers to ver­i­fy that they are pur­chas­ing mo­tor in­sur­ance from an agent/ sales­per­son who is li­censed by the Cen­tral Bank (CBTT) to trans­act busi­ness.

To con­firm the va­lid­i­ty of the agent, AT­TIC said cus­tomers should re­quest proof of their CBTT reg­is­tra­tion.

“When you vis­it an agent’s of­fices, their CBTT reg­is­tra­tion must be dis­played in a lo­ca­tion that is eas­i­ly vis­i­ble,” AT­TIC stat­ed.

“If there are doubts con­tact the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny to ver­i­fy that the per­son is li­censed to sell mo­tor in­sur­ance on their be­half,” it stat­ed.

Any­one seek­ing to pur­chase mo­tor in­sur­ance should al­so check the CBTT’s web­site for a list­ing of au­tho­rised agents sales­men.

If you are pay­ing for the pre­mi­um by cheque, AT­TIC has al­so ad­vised peo­ple to is­sue it di­rect­ly to the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny and avoid writ­ing a cheque in the per­son­al name of the agent or sales­per­son.

Al­so, en­sure that you re­ceive an of­fi­cial re­ceipt in the name of the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny and that you have con­tact de­tails for the per­son han­dling your trans­ac­tions.

AT­TIC al­so ad­vised peo­ple not to as­sume that a per­son wear­ing cloth­ing with a com­pa­ny’s lo­go is an em­ploy­ee or rep­re­sen­ta­tive of that com­pa­ny.

“Do not as­sume that a doc­u­ment such as a mo­tor cer­tifi­cate with the com­pa­ny’s lo­go is au­then­tic as these can be eas­i­ly pro­duced via so­phis­ti­cat­ed com­put­er soft­ware,” AT­TIC stat­ed.

“Do not as­sume that a per­son with a call card bear­ing the com­pa­ny’s name and lo­go is an em­ploy­ee or rep­re­sen­ta­tive of that com­pa­ny. These can be eas­i­ly print­ed,” it stat­ed.

AT­TIC stat­ed that re­cent amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic (Amend­ment) Bill 2019 which in­tro­duces leg­is­la­tion that will en­able the au­thor­i­ties to use tech­nol­o­gy that will as­sist great­ly in com­bat­ting mo­tor fraud is a step in the right di­rec­tion.

“We rec­om­mend that ur­gent con­sid­er­a­tion be al­so giv­en to per­mit­ting the is­suance and use of elec­tron­ic mo­tor cer­tifi­cates and ac­cess to re­al time mo­tor pol­i­cy in­for­ma­tion, as ad­di­tion­al tools to be used by the TTPS and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port,” AT­TIC stat­ed.  

AT­TIC of­fi­cial­ly launched its In­sur­ance Claims­bank Data­base ini­tia­tive on May 1.

“This data­base which is in­ter alia de­signed to de­tect and pre­vent in­sur­ance fraud will be shared with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port and the TTPS in or­der to ar­rest this il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty,” AT­TIC stat­ed.