It should be remembered that in Spain, the law obliges any owner to have civil liability insurance to guarantee the damage that may be caused to third parties due to movement, whether physical or to their property. Despite this, there are vehicles circulating without a valid policy, and although it seems unlikely, there may be many situations in which we need to know if a vehicle has insurance. Let’s imagine that we have been involved in an accident and the other person involved has fled without providing us with his information, or we release a company car, and we have doubts as we have not received much information.
There are cases in which we need to know that information. But… how could we do it? We are going to explain how to know if a car has insurance and how to proceed in different cases.
Options to inform you if a car has valid insurance.
There are two possibilities to know if a vehicle has its corresponding and obligatory car deductible insurance :
FIVA file
The FIVA File (Information File of Insured Vehicles) is a government database in which all those vehicles that have been registered with any of the insurance companies are registered :
It is difficult to access the information in the informative file on vehicles with insurance since it is not a public file and is practically reserved for inquiries from public or private bodies in order to comply with the LOPD. But it is not impossible; there are three options:
-Request the information in person by going to a branch of the Insurance Compensation Consortium and filling in and submitting an insurance consultation model for vehicles with Spanish registration, as well as others such as a damage report (or friendly accident declaration) and a specification of whether you come as an information requester or representing another person, if applicable.
- Carrying out the same operation by mail – Production Department, Paseo de la Castellana 32, 29046 Madrid -, fax – 91 339 55 14 – or email -ccsprod@consorseguros.es-. A phone call is not supported.
- It was making the query through the web, a route that not everyone can carry out as it is reserved for certain insurance companies, health centers, and medical emergency services.
Remember that your own insurance company will manage and process this procedure in the event of an accident, so you should not worry about consulting the file.
DGT report
The other great option is to find out if a vehicle has its relevant compulsory insurance and is more affordable. In the electronic headquarters of the DGT, there is information available for all users who need it.
We have to clarify that there are numerous types of reports on the site of the General Directorate of Traffic, but only the complete one reflects whether the car has some type of insurance. To obtain it and pay the corresponding fee, we must provide the license plate, frame number, or vehicle identification number.
This document that certifies that a vehicle has valid insurance can be obtained in three ways:
- Through a specialized agency and the most expensive -not too much, around 25 euros-.
- Through the electronic headquarters of the DGT. You must have a digital certificate, electronic DNI, or Cl@ve and carry out the following steps: buy the fee 4.1. for the full report; enter through the corresponding route; select the type of report we want to obtain; enter the data of the vehicle you want to inquire about and the reason for the query; enter the code of the rate previously purchased, and download the requested report.
- At the Provincial Traffic Headquarters, going there by appointment after having called 060 or carried out the online procedure. These are the steps: fill in the application with the official printed document, which we can already download or request there; prove your identity by DNI -or if you are a foreigner by means of the NIE, residence card, and passport-; specify the reason for the query; and having made the payment of the fee through the internet, at the Headquarters itself or at an entity attached to the payment of fees charged to the account.
Although everything indicated so far, remember that the fastest way to find out if a vehicle is insured is to ask the owner of the vehicle.