It is not up to the owner or driver of a car as to whether to carry insurance for the vehicle or not. It is a requirement, and by law, you cannot drive around in a vehicle that is uninsured. So, this means that when you’re buying a car, borrowing one, trading one, or even selling it, it is imperative to know for sure that the car’s papers, including insurance, are in order.

A simple and easy way to do this is to check out the vehicle history report, which can be accomplished if you know the car’s VIN or vehicle identification number.

Now should you be the potential buyer of the vehicle, then getting the vehicle history and information affords you a certain peace of mind, and you will know that everything is in order. And even when you’re the seller, by furnishing the vehicle history report (VHR) to serious bidders, you are helping your own cause and proving the clean record your vehicle has – or at least, validating the vehicle’s history as per the information you already shared. If the VHR has any questionable information that maybe even you are unaware of, you can have it looked into to ease the mind of your buyer.

After all, if you bought the car from a friend or were given it by a relative, you yourself may not have full knowledge of its past history.

Another instance when you would want to know whether a vehicle is insured, is in the unfortunate circumstance that you are involved in an accident with another vehicle – if the other driver flees the scene or refuses to furnish you with insurance information in the event of a dispute, you can simply use the vehicle’s license plate details to track down the information. Your local DMV should be able to help with this, and if not, the police will be able to guide you. Thus, using either a car’s vehicle identification number or else driver name and license plate number, you should be able to get information on whether the car has insurance that is current and valid. However, most of the time you will probably just exchange insurance information with the other driver – and here too, you should do your own check car insured at present, and what the coverage is.