Around 150,000 cars are on the province of Malaga’s roads with no insurance

The Andalusian Institute of Statistics reflects 900,000 policies while there are well over a million vehicles registered in Malaga

According to the database at the Traffic Department (DGT) at the end of 2009 there were some 1,044,361 vehicles registered in the province of Malaga. Of them, this time according to figures released last week by the Andalusian Institute of Statistics (IEA), only 897,180 had a valid insurance policy. You only have to compare the two figures to work out that this leaves some 150,000 cars, lorries or motorcycles with no obligatory insurance cover. This amounts to around 14 per cent of the total.

Nevertheless experts point out that not all of these uninsured vehicles are actually in circulation. In fact the president of the association ‘Automovilistas Europeos Asociados’ (AEA), Mario Arnaldo, explains that it is estimated that there are some two million vehicles in Spain with no insurance, “although we calculate that around half of them are not on the roads, but the owners have not made the relevant off road notification”, he stresses. Applying this to the context of the province of Malaga this would mean that some 74,000 vehicles are still on the roads with no cover.

Crisis

The report produced by the institute of statistics also shows how the economic crisis has taken its toll on the insurance business. The number of new car registrations has plummeted and vehicle usage in many families has been reduced, resulting in insurance policies falling by 8.5 per cent in 2009 in the province of Malaga. Meanwhile the number of companies dealing with insurance policies has fallen by eight per cent to 163 and have cut down their staff by six per cent to 920.

Road accidents in the province of Malaga forced insurance companies to pay out some 268.5 million euros in 2009, an average of 735 euros per claim.

Mario Arnaldo warns that drivers on the road with no insurance face fines of between 601 and 3,000 euros. Police officers are also authorised to take uninsured vehicles off the road and even send them to the scrapyard if the owner does not produced a valid insurance policy within two months.

The DGT reminds drivers that having no insurance also shows a lack of respect for others, as in the case of an accident, and if the owner cannot pay for the damage caused, the bill must be footed by the Consorcio de Compensación that is paid for with taxpayers’ money. The recent legal reform aimed to reduce the number of uninsured vehicles on the roads by making it obligatory to produce a valid insurance policy before taking the ITV motor vehicle test.

From SUR in English