No to Third Party Insurance

YOUR recent article about the Government's intention to seriously consider making third party insurance compulsory requires comment.

As with all laws, they are only obeyed by responsible people and to think that CTPI will somehow solve all the problems associated with accidents where one car is uninsured is a misconception.

In the UK, where CTPI is in place, there is a 15% non-compliance rate and it has been at that level for years. The UK system covers bodily injury as well as third-party property damage and is part of the motor registration system.

However, this does not stop people from taking out insurance cover and then cancelling it a few days later, when they have got their registration completed.

If a person takes out CTPI, it won't provide cover whilst driving under the influence, if the vehicle has been modified and the modifications not disclosed to the insurer, if the driver does not hold a current licence, if the vehicle is not registered, etc.

As most of the so-called "boy racers" have modified cars and often no WOF due to those modifications, what happens then?

We all have excesses on our policies. If insurers put, say, a $5000 excess on a "boy racer" or inexperienced young driver's third party insurance policy who then had an at-fault accident, how would the innocent person get $5000 from the offender? Then we come to the issue of who was at fault. Normal full motor car insurance operates on the "knock for knock" principal, an arrangement which means that liability does not have to be established for a claim to be accepted. Not so with third party insurance, liability has to be proved which will often mean a Disputes Tribunal hearing or, if the amount of the claim is high enough, court proceedings, both of which have a significant time lag.

M. BROOKE New Plymouth

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