The sad sign of impending middle age is when you find yourself frequently referencing your childhood or teens when trying to make sense of the world around you. With frightening speed, your memories of the past starts to appear as archaic and sepia tinted as an Edwardian picture book. Trying to explain to a youngster that ‘in your day’ you didn’t have mobile phones, MP3 players and web access (for starters) frequently elicits a look that must have been all too familiar to Copernicus when he started to announce that, ‘Perhaps, just perhaps, the earth revolves around the sun’

I found myself once again in ‘when I were a lad’ mode this week when I read that the law is going to be changed to allow motor insurance certificates to be issued electronically. Not so long ago, insuring your car usually meant a visit to a broker. On many occasions I queued for what seemed a lifetime while they tried to find me the best deal. The personal touch of the high street brokers was soon threatened by the huge telephone insurance operations that emerged during the eighties and nineties. With one phone call you could compare quotes and insure your car. Then the web introduced greater refinement and choice, allowing you to tailor your policy to your exact requirements. But the main problem was that if you had just bought a car or needed to tax it you still had to wait for the documents to drop through your letterbox.

The past couple of years have seen the next stage of online insurance. Now some companies offer immediate cover and a certificate that can be printed out for production, either when taxing a vehicle or when required by the police. So I was surprised to read that apparently the Department of Transport has only just announced plans to allow the issuing of electronic insurance certificates. If you’ll forgive the legalese, part VI of The Road Traffic Act 1988 sets out the statutory requirements for motor insurance. Section 147 states that ‘a policy of insurance shall be of no effect unless the insurer delivers to the policyholder a certificate in the prescribed form and with the prescribed details.’

Whether an emailed certificate that is then printed out is ‘the prescribed manner’ seems uncertain, but thankfully this anomaly now looks to be cleared up. Checking a few of the online insurers who provide instant cover and certificates, they do seem to offer the facility for documents to be delivered to you by post, sometimes for an additional charge. I’ve certainly had no problems producing a printed out certificate when taxing a car. The Motor Insurance Database (MID) contains details of 22 million UK cars, allowing the police to check whether you are insured within seconds simply by checking your registration plate. What difference is there between a certificate you print out and one posted to you? It’s not even as if the posted certificates contained a special hologram or anti-forging device.

“This is good news for customers and insurers,” said Justin Jacobs, Association of British Insurer’s Head of Motor Insurance.” Over half of UK households are now online, and this will enable them to arrange motor insurance more speedily. This will be especially helpful when buying and taxing a vehicle quickly. It will also help insurers provide a faster, more cost-effective service to their customers.”

Anything that allows quicker insurance and documentation for cars has to be a good thing. You can already buy your road tax online but as in the ‘old days’ (last week) of insurance it still has to be posted to you. Hopefully it can only be a matter of time before you print your own tax disc. A printer in every home - Gutenberg would never have believed it.

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