How PolicyCenter uses motor vehicle records

A motor vehicle record (MVR) documents a driver’s driving history. The MVR report contains information such as identifying data, license status, convictions, traffic violations, accidents, license suspensions, and revocations. In the U.S., the information in this report usually comes from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for each jurisdiction. The information in the report can vary by jurisdiction. In the U.S., most service providers provide MVR data for all jurisdictions, so you need to integrate only with a single service provider.

An insurer uses MVR reports to evaluate risks associated with drivers. Violations are assigned point values, with more severe violations having a higher point value. A high MVR point total indicates a high risk driver and can result in higher policy premiums. Agents who use PolicyCenter click Retrieve MVR on the Drivers screen of a personal auto job to start a ProcessMVRsWF workflow. This workflow calls the IMotorVehicleRecordPlugin to retrieve MVR reports for drivers submitted by agents.

Since there is a cost associated with retrieving reports from external MVR service providers, PolicyCenter stores the retrieved MVR data to minimize future lookups. PolicyCenter requests the MVR report from an external service provider only if PolicyCenter does not have a copy or if the report is considered to be stale.

The retrieved MVR report is maintained in a separate MVR repository that is independent of the driver’s account or policy. This allows an MVR report to be reused for a driver associated with multiple accounts or policies. This also provides flexibility as to when to update an MVR report on in-force policies. In the base configuration, the MVR report for an in-force policy is updated at renewal or during a policy change.