You have just insured your bike or car online, but to get out on the road you must tax it. Not all insurers send out paper certificates, and those that do can take a week or more. So how do you do tax a vehicle without a certificate of insurance?

The insurance system is slowly moving over to electronic certificates, but they are not telling you.

When you buy insurance your insurance company will make an entry on a national insurance database, called the Motor Insurer’s Database, or MID. The MID is used by the police to check if a vehicle is insured. The MID can be checked by staff at the Post Office counter, or when you buy your tax online with the DVLA. You will need the 16 digit number from the tax renewal reminder, or the 11 digit vehicle identification number, plus the vehicle’s registration number. If the vehicle has an MOT certificate that should also be on a central electronic record.

So not having an insurance certificate is not a problem, but why doesn’t someone tell you that. Let us know how you get on.

Tags: certificate, DVLA, insurance, MID, vehicle tax renewal
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