SAIA plans to open its Vehicle Salvage Database to be opened to the public

The South African Insurance Association (SAIA) plans to open its Vehicle Salvage Database (VSD) to the public in a move to stop previously written-off and poorly repaired vehicles from re-entering the used market. The VSD system contains information on salvage vehicles.

These are vehicles that have been deregistered by the respective insurers and thus declared salvage, after policyholders have been indemnified of their motor claims.
The VSD will assist the insurance and the motor industries with the process of managing wrecked motor vehicles by ensuring that an effective mitigating tool is introduced against the many vehicle crime opportunities.

When a written-off vehicle is sold, the respective code is disclosed to the buyer. In this, the non-life insurance industry ensures that the relevant stakeholders who buy the salvage vehicle is fully informed of the state of the vehicle being sold, and therefore how the respective vehicle should be treated going forward. For instance, a ‘Code 4’ is a permanently demolished vehicle.

All Code 3, 3A and 4 written off vehicles will be published on the site and the description of the codes will align with the SAIA salvage code.