The government has made some changes to the regulations for Continuous Insurance of vehicles in the UK. From 16-12-2013 it will no longer be necessary to renew a SORN every year as long as you remain the owner of the car.

But if you sell a car on a SORN, the new owner will need to register it to himself and declare his own SORN. The SORN does not pass from one keeper to another.

The change, announced today by Roads Minister Robert Goodwill, is part of a package of measures to get rid of unnecessary red tape.

Last year, around 4 million SORNs were made, with over 1 million of those repeat renewals.

Additionally, registered keepers will no longer need to have their insurance certificates checked when re-taxing a vehicle.

The changes to insurance checks have been made possible because DVLA regularly checks existing databases for insurance under Continuous Insurance Enforcement rules. DVLA’s records are compared regularly with the Motor Insurance Database to identify registered keepers of vehicles that have no insurance.

Ashton West, Chief Executive at the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) said: “Motor insurance remains a legal requirement and these changes recognise the value and importance of the insurance records held centrally on the MID. The introduction of Continuous Insurance Enforcement in 2011 was always designed to provide a more robust and technology driven solution to ensuring that vehicles have insurance in place. The successful introduction of the new process by the DVLA and the MIB has enabled these changes to be made now, which will bring benefits to millions of motorists.”

The Continuous Insurance Enforcement (CIE) scheme to tackle uninsured motorists was launched in June 2011 making it an offence to be the keeper of an uninsured vehicle whether on the road or not, unless a SORN has been declared on the vehicle. Information is cross checked between the Motor Insurance Database (MID) and DVLA keeper records.

Under CIE, keepers of vehicles which appear to be uninsured are sent reminder letters. Those who take no action receive a fixed penalty notice of £100, followed by enforcement action – wheelclamping, impounding and ultimately prosecution by the courts (the maximum fine in Court is £1,000).

For the offence of driving without insurance the police can offer a fixed penalty of £200 plus six penalty points, or prosecution (maximum fine of £5,000), discretionary disqualification and mandatory endorsement of between six and eight penalty points.

Since 2005 the police have had the power to seize uninsured vehicles. In 2011 they seized 140,000 vehicles.

Drivers and owners can check their vehicle is on the Motor Insurance Database at www.askMID.com.

The removal of the insurance check applies to motorists in GB; the removal of the need to SORN each year applies to all motorists in the UK.