NY - DMV program incorrectly nixing insurance coverage

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By Associated Press, 12/3/2000 15:50 ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) You may know you have auto insurance. Your agent may know you have auto insurance. Your company may know you have auto insurance.

But if a new state Department of Motor Vehicles computer program does not recognize it, you could end up trouble.

Blaine Friedlander of Ithaca was wrongly identified as having no insurance because, as it turns out, his name was too long. The computer chose to identify the Cornell University employee as ''Friedlander,B,P,Jr,'' when all his insurance records read ''Blaine P. Friedlander Jr,'' he and his agent said late last week.

He was caught in the maw of the early days of a DMV computer system approved by the Legislature three years ago. The system aims to weed out drivers who don't have insurance by keeping them from registering vehicles.

The Professional Insurance Agents Association supports the program, ''but we know we'll have some rocky points,'' the association's Ellen Kiehl said. The group represents 18,000 agents statewide.

One of the system's ''rocky points'' is the computer program's apparent requirement that perfect matches for names are needed to show that a New York driver has state-mandated insurance coverage.

When a name is too long, the computer strikes out vowels beginning at the start of the name, according to Kiehl whose association was closely involved with implementation of the new system. Local agents need to anticipate or react to this so insurance company's files exactly match the DMV's computer records so the necessary verification of a person's status as an insured driver is confirmed.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/338/region/DMV_program_incorrectly_nixing:.shtml

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 04, 2000


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