Senate Bill No. 162
(By Senators Unger, Sharpe, Ross, Helmick, Anderson, Kessler,
Snyder, Minear and Hunter)
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[Introduced January 20, 2000; referred to the Committee
on Banking and Insurance; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section five, article two-a, chapter
seventeen-d of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to requiring the
division of motor vehicles to implement a computerized motor
vehicle liability insurance tracking system on or before the
first day of July, two thousand one; requiring insurance
companies to provide notice to the division's computer
tracking system of changes in status of motor vehicle
liability insurance policies in effect on motor vehicles registered in this state; and requiring state and local
law-enforcement agencies to install computer equipment in
certain law-enforcement vehicles to access the computer
tracking system on or before the first day of July, two
thousand two.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section five, article two-a, chapter seventeen-d of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2A. SECURITY UPON MOTOR VEHICLES.
§17D-2A-5. Cancellation of insurance policy; notice to
division; suspension of registration;
computerized tracking system; minimum policy
term.
(a) An insurance company shall provide the division of motor
vehicles with a cancellation notice within ten days of the
effective date of cancellation whenever the company issues or
causes to be issued a cancellation under the provisions of
subsections (b) through (e), section one, article six-a, chapter
thirty-three of this code. Unless the division of motor vehicles
by legislative rule allows for an alternative to suspension, the division shall then suspend the driver license of the owner of
such vehicle for a period of thirty days and shall suspend the
motor vehicle registration until proof of insurance is presented
to the division. If, within the thirty-day period a license or
registration is suspended, the owner shows proof of insurance,
the owner's license and registration shall be immediately removed
from suspension. If a license or registration is not suspended
as result of the cancellation of insurance, the owner of the
motor vehicle shall submit a statement under penalty of false
swearing, that the cancellation will not result in the operation
of an uninsured motor vehicle upon the highways of this state,
and this verification shall be sent to the commissioner within
twenty days of the notice of cancellation.
(b) On or before the first day of July, two thousand one,
the division, in cooperation with the West Virginia state police
and the insurance commission, shall implement a computerized
system to track the status of motor vehicle liability insurance
policies on all motor vehicles registered in this state, and
which system shall include the capacity to provide
law-enforcement officers in the field the ability to undertake instantaneous motor vehicle liability insurance background
checks via computer or other electronic transmission. Upon
implementation of the computer tracking system, an insurance
company must provide notice within forty-eight hours to the
division's computer tracking system via computer or other
electronic transmission of any change in status of a motor
vehicle liability insurance policy it has in effect on a motor
vehicle registered in this state. On or before the first day of
July, two thousand two, all state and local law-enforcement
agencies charged with the enforcement of motor vehicle laws shall
install appropriate computer or other electronic equipment in at
least fifty percent of their law-enforcement vehicles to provide
access to the division's computer tracking system. When the
computer tracking system is fully operational, the division may
forego the driver's license suspension and motor vehicle
registration suspension requirements of subsection (a) of this
section in those instances where proof of insurance or other
security can be verified by the computer tracking system. The
division shall propose rules for legislative approval in
accordance with the provisions of article three, chapter twenty-nine of this code to implement the provisions of this
subsection.
(b) (c) On or before the fifteenth day of January, one
thousand nine hundred eighty-five, the commissioner of motor
vehicles shall report to the Legislature upon proceedings
pursuant to this section. The report shall include the total
number of statements selected for verification as required by
section three, article three, chapter seventeen-a, the total
number of notices received from insurers, the total number of
notices of pending suspensions issued and the total number of
cases in which cancellation was found to have resulted in a lapse
of coverage upon a vehicle operated upon the highways of this
state during the prior year.
(c) (d) No policy of motor vehicle liability insurance
issued or delivered for issuance in this state shall be
contracted for a period of less than ninety days: Provided, That
the insurance commissioner may establish exceptions thereto by
rules and regulations to chapter twenty-nine-a.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide for the creation, by July 1, 2001, of a computerized system to track
uninsured motor vehicles in this state.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.