The Department of Motor Vehicles won’t be sharing its insurance suspension information with law enforcement until it can clean up its backlog.
“We don’t want people ticketed or towed for this matter until it is cleared up,” Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Andres Ayala Jr. said Thursday at a press conference at its headquarters in Wethersfield.
Ayala apologized to drivers who were inconvenienced by having their registration suspended even though they were continuously insured. However, Ayala was unwilling to say how many people were impacted by the problem.
This week the DMV admitted that it had fallen behind on processing insurance suspension notices. In Connecticut, in order to maintain registration on a vehicle, that vehicle must be insured.
That meant that drivers who had valid insurance were having their registration suspended, which meant they would be ticketed and possibly towed, if they were stopped by law enforcement.
Ayala said if those drivers can prove they had continuous insurance then they will be reimbursed by the DMV for any fees or fines they received as a result of the problems.
“Anything that was our fault, we will make the customer whole,” Ayala said referring to any fees that were levied as a result of the registration suspension.
He directed the public to www.ct.gov/dmv/refund for more information about how to get reimbursed.
Ayala said the DMV also will provide documentation to drivers to show in court that the registration suspension was an error.
The problem, which has an unknown number of motorists concerned, started when the agency closed in August for a week to upgrade its computer system. During that week none of the insurance suspension notices were sent to motorists and a backlog of notices started piling up.
The DMV said Wednesday that a dozen employees will be working this weekend to clean up the backlog.
Anyone with questions about whether their insurance is in compliance can visit the DMV’s website and check by clicking on the relevant links.
