High level of car write-offs were already crashed in UK

A HIGH number of cars imported into and registered in the State and subsequently written off had previously been written off in Britain, according to a new study.

The report was based on 3,005 UK imports later written off here which were cross-checked against write-offs on Britain’s Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud Theft Register (MIAFTR). It found 287 of the cars, or 9.6 per cent, had been previously declared a write-off by a British insurer.

The study was compiled by Cartell.ie, a private firm that provides prospective car purchasers with a vehicle history check.

The findings prompted the firm to set up one of the first cross-border vehicle insurance databases holding detailed records on Irish and UK write-offs.

The report also identified 74 Irish-registered vehicles that were registered as having been written off by more than one Irish insurer.

The Irish insurers which took part in the research – Aviva, RSA and Quinn – are understood to be considering a larger cross-referencing of their databases to check for other multiple write-offs.

Insurers started using the new database, called MIAFTR Ireland, at the end of November and access will be extended to the public soon. It will hold information from all but one of the major Irish insurers and the UK’s MIAFTR going back over a decade.

The Garda, Department of Transport, Road Safety Authority (RSA) and Revenue Commissioners have been investigating the return of write-offs to the road.

This inquiry has led the department to write to more than 1,400 car owners to notify them their cars were previously classified as written off, and urging them to carry out a roadworthiness check on their vehicles immediately.

One of the reasons why write-offs can be returned to the road, be insured and pass an NCT in Ireland is that Irish insurers are not obliged to make write-off data available to the National Vehicle Driver File. This is currently done on a voluntary basis.

The department is preparing the Road Traffic Bill 2011, which will make notification obligatory. The Bill will also provide a write-off classification system.

This will distinguish between engineering write-offs, which are damaged so severely that they should never be used again, and economic write-offs, for which the cost of repair is simply too high.

The Cartell.ie study examined 149 UK-registered write-offs imported into and registered in the State. It found 43 were the subject of a write-off claim with an Irish insurer based on almost identical crash damage within the first year of registration.

The Revenue has introduced a pre-registration check, carried out by the NCT, for used cars being imported into the State in a bid to curb imports of written off and damaged cars and vehicles being misrepresented for VRT purposes.