Senate Bill No. 394
(By Senators Unger, Bailey, Kessler, Anderson, Snyder and Hunter)
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[Introduced March 5, 2001; 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 two; 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 three.
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
the 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 two, 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 three, 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, 2002, 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.