7 days for car insurance to appear on MID?

Hades · 13 Mar 2018 at 16:32

After the usual annual insurance dance I moved to a new insurer on Sunday. Today I checked the car was on AskMID which is something I occasionally do to make sure the insurance has moved over. It wasn't on MID so I called the insurance company who advised it can take up to 7 days to appear on there.

In today's technology how on earth can it take up to 7 days? Being a software developer myself it just astounds me that this isn't a real-time system or lags more than 24 hours.

Or is it the insurance company being tardy (they are a very large company though)?

Luke · 13 Mar 2018 at 16:35

I was pulled by police early in the morning a couple of years back. They said I wasn't showing on their screen as being insured. It was about 3 or 4 days after I'd renewed my policy.
No action was taken, they just suggested I contact my insurer to make sure everything was ok.

IAmATeaf · 13 Mar 2018 at 16:38

It sounds like either MID or the insurance company do periodic batch exports/imports?

Gibbo · 13 Mar 2018 at 16:42

Yes takes a few days.

A few weeks back I got a letter from the Police saying they had spotted me driving and my registration flagged as un-insured on their database and to check with my insurance and that no further action would be taken, no idea why they did not pull me over if they though I was driving uninsured.,

Anyway I rang my insurance and they had made an admin error when they updated my number plate, they changed it immediately but askmid took 3-4 days to show the change.

InvaderGIR · 13 Mar 2018 at 16:46

IAmATeaf said:
It sounds like either MID or the insurance company do periodic batch exports/imports?

It's this basically.

MID doesn't seem to run an API with the ability to add data or if they do, insurance cos all use different systems so find it easier to just batch up a few hundred/thousand people and send them over in one go once a week or whatever.

You'd think OP being a dev he'd understand this.

Hades · 13 Mar 2018 at 18:04

InvaderGIR said:
You'd think OP being a dev he'd understand this.

Of course I understand it. That's why it seems astonishing that it takes over 24 hours. If an online API isn't exposed then one batch file per day per insurer would seem reasonable. But it sounds like a weekly feed. Which is nuts.

Clarkey · 13 Mar 2018 at 20:15

Depends on the company, I've had specialist brokers take days, and big name insurers instantly updated.

Tom|Nbk · 13 Mar 2018 at 20:25

Normally it’s the next day for me with Classicline

Scania · 14 Mar 2018 at 07:52

Gibbo said:
no idea why they did not pull me over if they though I was driving uninsured.,

The anpr system automatically logs uninsured drivers and flags it to the officers in the car, if they have a higher priority shout you’ll just get a letter, otherwise it’s an automatic stop.

andybird123 · 14 Mar 2018 at 08:20

As above, I've had small brokers take 4days, but the big well know ones its usually within 24 hours whenever I've thought to check

Hades · 14 Mar 2018 at 10:51

Still not on there today.

This is with RAC as the insurer. If my wife or I get pulled over in the next few days I'm going to be fuming with them (the RAC, not the police who would simply be doing their job).

Glanza · 14 Mar 2018 at 11:50

Had it happen once before when I changed vehicle and they hadn't pushed the correct details onto the database, rang up and within 2 days I popped up on askmid as insured.