The state will soon send warning letters to uninsured drivers — and more than 40,000 McLennan County residents are on the list.

The Texas Department of Insurance has compared information from an auto insurance database with state vehicle registrations to identify uninsured drivers. Sometime this spring, it will begin sending out letters to those drivers, warning them that they appear to be in violation of the law and asking them to provide proof if they are insured, spokesman Jerry Hagins said.

Statewide, about 22 percent of registered passenger vehicles — about 4.1 million — cannot be matched to an insurance policy, Hagins said.

Cars line up at Waco and Valley Mills drives. According to a state report, more than 40,000 drivers in McLennan County do not have insurance.
Duane A. Laverty/Waco Tribune-Herald, file

McLennan County’s percentage of uninsured drivers is the same as the state’s — 22 percent. That represents 40,473 vehicles, according to state data.

There may be a few cases in which people are insured but don’t show up in the system, Hagins said. But for the most part, state officials think unmatched registrations are from people who do not carry the liability insurance the state requires, he said.

Such insurance is mandated to ensure that drivers are financially responsible for damage they cause in an accident, Hagins said.

Drivers who don’t have it can be fined up to $350 for the first conviction. Subsequent convictions can bring fines of up to $1,000 and possible suspension of a driver’s license.

“It will be an opportunity to remind them what their responsibility is,” Hagins said of the letters.

The database, called TexasSure, was rolled out statewide in October 2008. Lawmakers created it in hopes of decreasing the number of uninsured drivers.

In the past, law enforcement officers say they sometimes were hoodwinked by insurance cards that were either fake or issued as renewals that showed expiration dates months off, regardless of whether people continued to make payments.

With the database, officers can quickly check whether someone is insured by looking up a vehicle’s license- plate number. It’s similar to the systems they use to determine whether a vehicle might be stolen or whether someone has an outstanding arrest warrant.

County tax assessors-collectors also have access to the database. People must have proof of insurance to get their vehicle registration.

Hagins said it is too early to know whether the database actually is decreasing the number of uninsured drivers. But state officials are glad to finally have good, hard data about the number of uninsured drivers, he said.

State officials also are pleased by how smoothly the database has been working, Hagins said. They have been able to match more than 99 percent of all reported auto insurance policies to a registered vehicle, he said.

As for the upcoming letters, Hagins said they are simply an advisory.

The law that created the database did not give the insurance department enforcement authority for those who do not have required coverage, he said.

“It’s totally a reminder,” Hagins said.

Texas Department of Public Safety Senior Cpl. Charlie Morgan said the database has been working well for officers.

“It’s given us another tool to add to our arsenal on traffic stops to help us locate people who are driving around without insurance, and it also encourages people to get insured because they know they’re going to be caught,” Morgan said.

If drivers cannot produce paper proof of insurance but are listed in the database as being insured, DPS policy is to not write them a citation for lacking coverage, Morgan said. Conversely, if someone has paper proof but it’s not matched to a policy in the database, it’s up to the officer whether to issue a ticket, he said.

cculp@wacotrib.com

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