Police get tough on late motor insurance payments

Police say they are not interested in motorists' excuses for not paying their car insurance, and will issue fines even when the insurance company has delayed sending out bills, reports gazdasagiradio.hu. Many insurers have a backlog of bills to send out after the rush to switch policies late last year.

Around 700,000 motorists switched insurance company at the end of last year, leading to a bottleneck of unprocessed policies and a delay in sending out bills to new customers. This poses a problem for many car owners as their insurance automatically expires if they fail to pay within 30 days of the first day of the new insurance season, January 1.

If a police officer stops a driver without valid insurance, they cannot avoid a fine by referring to the fact that the company failed to send them a bill in time, because they could have paid by bank transfer or personally at the company's customer service center.

Police can only punish car owners if they admit responsibility, and the fine cannot exceed Ft 30,000 (€120). If they argue that they are not responsible for the lack of valid liability insurance, they are reported, and the fees can run up to Ft 100,000.

Although police can check a car against the central database, data from several companies is not updated daily and may contain inaccurate information.

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