askMID Explained: How to Check Your Insurance on the MID

To check if your car is insured on the MID, visit askMID.com, enter your vehicle registration, and follow the redirect to Navigate. If your insurer has submitted your details – we update the MID four times a day –  your cover will be visible. You don’t need to wait for your insurance to appear on the MID to be able to drive though. As soon as you have your insurance certificate and your policy has begun, you can get behind the wheel. 

The Motor Insurance Database (MID) was the official record of insured vehicles in the UK, and askMID was the website where you could check your car’s insurance status against this database. However, as of April 2024, Navigate – run by The Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) – is the new home of data on insured vehicles in the UK. You can still visit askMID, but you’ll be redirected to Navigate if you want to run a MID check.

Since driving without insurance is illegal, the police frequently use the MID and Navigate to identify uninsured vehicles. If you’re planning to drive, even just for 5 minutes, you must always have valid cover in place. Our temporary car insurance offering can help ensure you’re always comprehensively covered, whether you’re between policies, borrowing a vehicle, or driving your new car home.

How Does askMID Work?

When you purchase car insurance, your policy details are uploaded to the MID (now Navigate). Your insurer or broker (such as ourselves) is responsible for updating the database.

At GoShorty, we pride ourselves on updating the MID more frequently than most:

• We update the MID four times a day – at 5:30am, 9am, 2pm, and 6pm – every day of the year.
• Your details should appear on the database within two hours of our updates, often sooner.
• This means short-term and hourly policies are more likely to show on the MID in time, reducing the stress of last-minute checks.

This means our customers benefit from one of the most reliable and frequent MID update schedules around. This gives you extra peace of mind if you’ve purchased short-term car insurance, since short-term policies are more time-sensitive and can otherwise risk falling through the cracks if your insurer doesn’t update the MID as regularly.

Important: The MID does not update instantly. But once you’ve received your insurance documents, you are legally covered to drive. You don’t need to wait for the MID to show your policy.

Key Things to Remember

• If your policy doesn’t show up immediately, you’re still covered as long as your insurance has started and you have your certificate of insurance, which is proof you’re insured.
• Short-term insurance may not appear straight away, but it’s still valid.
• If your policy hasn’t appeared after a few days, check with your insurer to ensure the details were entered correctly, not providing the correct details could invalidate your policy. 

You should only ever purchase insurance from an FCA-approved provider. Not doing so could leave you uninsured and at risk of ghost broking.