Uninsured Motorists Letter to the Editor
August 10, 2004
The Star’s Andrea Neal recently wrote a column detailing the problems of uninsured motorists on Indiana roads. As Ms. Neal noted, this problem affects many law-abiding drivers on a regular basis. The problem with the law designed to identify uninsured motorists has been in the enforcement. As the article noted, the State Police have just now processed 300,000 accident reports from the past three years. Only now, do the State Police and Bureau of Motor Vehicles appear prepared to adequately enforce this common sense approach to identifying violators. Once the law we currently have is being utilized as it was intended, lawmakers will be better equipped to determine whether or not the punishment of offenders is sufficient enough to force compliance.
The statement that offenders are likely to comply with the law because of a fear of getting caught is only partially correct. It is likely the real means to deter violation of the Financial Responsibility Law will rest in making the financial penalties stiffer than securing financial responsibility in the first place. If it is cheaper for these violators to pay a fine than purchase insurance, it is pretty clear what many will do.
Another means other states have utilized to encourage compliance is the enactment of "no pay, no play." This concept prohibits financial responsibility offenders from recovering anything more than compensatory damages when involved in an accident. They could recover medical bills or other actual losses, but could not seek punitive damages, or awards for pain and suffering.
If such drivers are unwilling to protect the motoring public by maintaining insurance coverage, why should they enjoy the ability to recover beyond their actual injuries? The problem with the creation of a database to identify whenever a policy is canceled is that the vast majority of canceled policies are by law-abiding citizens who are simply changing companies. The government would be spending considerable time and money to identify people who are complying with the law, not those who are in violation. In addition, the states which have created such databases have experience significant difficulties in coordinating their database with those of the insurance companies across the country. By the time the information is gathered, months have passed and the violator has already secured and canceled a new policy for the state to track.
Indiana is fortunate to have some of the lowest insurance rates in the country. That has helped to keep the uninsured population to around 12 percent, which is lower than the national average. However, 12 percent is still high, and we suggest stricter enforcement of the current law will help to address the problem. Steve Williams, President Insurance Institute of Indiana