• Ending accident ‘horror stories’ not ‘rocket science’

• Insurers await action over digital-based solutions

• Urging tougher penalties and stricter enforcement

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas is “really playing Russian roulette on the road” with its citizens’ lives by failing to crack down on the estimated 25-30 percent of drivers who are uninsured, insurers warned yesterday.

Both Anton Saunders, RoyalStar Assurance’s managing director, and Timothy Ingraham, Summit Insurance Company’s chief executive, confirmed to Tribune Business that the industry has proposed digital-based solutions to the authorities that would help prevent the numerous “horror stories” resulting from traffic fatalities, injuries and economic loss caused by uninsured drivers.

Speaking after the Royal Bahamas Police Force’s traffic division head revealed that 50 percent, or half, of all vehicles involved in accidents in 2023 were uninsured, they argued that the failure to follow through with an electronic system that links the police to the Road Traffic Department and private insurer databases is creating loopholes that rogue drivers exploit with impunity.

However, Mr Ingraham said he had been informed that government officials were “expecting approval” to “move forward any day now” with the first element of that project which would allow property and casualty insurers to send digital motor vehicle insurance certificates directly to Road Traffic.

This will confirm whether drivers possess the proper insurance, and help alert the authorities as to whether the necessary coverage has been renewed by the due date or if it has expired - a first step in trying to detect and catch those driving without protection.

“The police have the facts more than us,” Mr Saunders told this newspaper over assertions by Chief Superintendent David Lockhart, the police traffic division head, that half the vehicles involved in traffic accidents are not insured.

“If the police are saying 50 percent of the people are not insured, then we in The Bahamas are really playing Russian roulette on the road,” the RoyalStar chief asserted. “To tackle this, this is not rocket science. You go down south, or you go north. The blueprint is there.

“It’s the will of the administration, whichever administration it is, to deal with it and deal with it properly. The solution is there in many countries once they do it properly. Others have dealt with this. There ain’t no sense reinventing the wheel. Let’s apply what’s best for us.” Mr Saunders said part of the solution lies in stricter enforcement of the law and more severe penalties for those caught driving without insurance.

“If you are driving without insurance or registration, the car is impounded at a proper impound place. The driver cannot recover the car unless they pay the impound fee and court fee, and all those things,” he added. “And if the police catch you out there without those things, there are tremendous fines they can impose.”

Mr Saunders said uninsured drivers, who are caught and booked by the police, are too often let go or receive relatively minor punishment and continue with their law-breaking. “We are playing Russian roulette,” he reiterated.

“You should really go and talk to those people involved in accidents where the other person was driving without insurance and see the devastation caused. I have some friends and colleagues in the same position. It’s devastating. You need to contact those people, and you will hear the horror stories of what they are going through now and everything else.

It could happen to any one of us out there. Someone hits us, changes our lives without any compensation. If the police are saying 50 percent of persons involved in accidents are ‘x’, I believe the figure will be 25 percent of persons driving on the road with no insurance,” Mr Saunders continued.

“If you take the statistics that come into our office, 25 percent of our comprehensive insurance clients involved in accidents are hit by someone with no insurance. Until we start enforcing these things, and start ensuring those people who are liable pay, it’s going to continue.”

Chief Superintendent Lockhart partially blamed the level of non-insurance on drivers obtaining temporary cover notes from brokers and agents, thus enabling them to pass the Road Traffic inspection, only to subsequently fail to pay the required premium leading to the cancellation of coverage.

However, Mr Saunders described cover notes as “a thing of the past” for BIA members and these are no longer issued given their vulnerability to fraud and misuse. Yet drivers are still only partially paying their motor vehicle premiums to pass Road Traffic, failing to pay the full balance and continuing to drive despite the cancellation of coverage.

“We reach out to the Road Traffic Department, but it’s not digitised,” Mr Saunders added. “Until these things are digitised to make them more efficient, these things will always be there. We are still not one.

“I am sure the BIA, and I cannot speak on the BIA’s behalf because I am not an officer of the BIA, but if they come to the BIA I am sure we will be happy to sit down and resolve the situation.”

Mr Ingraham, meanwhile, said the problem of uninsured drivers on Bahamian roads is a long-standing issue but little progress has been made in implementing the proposed solutions. “As far as I’m aware, nothing has been done with any of the suggestions,” he told Tribune Business.

“The digitisation programme that the Government is moving forward, I think that paused recently, although I understand it’s about to restart again. That had a component that allows us to issue a certificate of insurance directly to Road Traffic saying a person’s insurance is active.

“If the insurance has expired it’s all electronic, so it would go in the police system and Road Traffic Department system that the insurance on this vehicle has expired and not been renewed. Putting insurance certificates on the blockchain makes it very difficult for someone to duplicate. It really has the potential to eliminate or reduce the amount of fraud we see.”

The Summit Insurance chief confirmed that another aspect of this initiative to combat uninsured drivers would involve equipping the Royal Bahamas Police Force with hand-held scanners the size of cell phones, so they could randomly scan vehicle licence plates.

This would “take them into the Road Traffic Department database and they would know right away that vehicle’s insurance is active or has expired”, Mr Ingraham added, indicating he had received word the Government was about to resume work on Road Traffic’s digitisation.

“I’ve been asking questions about it, and I understand the new team in place is moving that forward, and expects approval to move it forward any day now,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll start to see that come on stream early in the New Year when we start to deal with some of these issues.”

Mr Ingraham disclosed there had also been discussions at the BIA level about creating an “insurance disc”, which would carry the underwriter’s name and date of policy expiry, and be placed on the inside of auto windscreens. This, he added, would enable the police to better check whether the vehicle was insured until the digital solution was implemented.

“Something like that probably needs to be looked at,” he added. “It’s a problem from the perspective of an uninsured driver getting into an accident, and someone in the other vehicle is injured. Who pays their medical bills?

“I’ve seen where bread winners are badly injured or killed, and the insurer pays out a robust amount of money in some cases to ensure victims and their families retain a reasonable quality of life. It’s critical that vehicles be insured if they are on the roads. The potential to ruin somebody’s life is quite high.”

The Summit chief executive, asked how many Bahamian drivers are likely uninsured, replied: “The last time we did any type of estimation was several years ago. Brian Self led the effort. He estimated about that about 30 percent of vehicles on the roads are uninsured.

“That was a few years back, and it’s not too difficult to believe at this point that it has become higher. We have more vehicles on the road these days, and you imagine we have more people in financial difficulties who elect not to become insured.”