Overview of the Merit Rating Board

Additional information about the board.

Overview

The Merit Rating Board (MRB) was established in 1976 in accordance with Section 57A of Chapter 6C of the Massachusetts General Laws and is a subdivision of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s (MassDOT’s) Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV). MRB is managed by a director appointed by the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, the Commissioner of Insurance, and the Attorney General. Its primary mission is to maintain and update driving records and report driving record information to Massachusetts auto insurers and other transportation and public-safety government agencies. More specifically, its day-to-day operations include the following:

• receiving insurance claims from insurers and applying each claim incident to the individual’s driving record
• processing requests for driving history information from insurers, applying each inquiry to the individual’s driving record, and returning a response to the insurer
• receiving out-of-state driving records from insurers and applying each out-of-state incident to the individual’s driving record
• designing and operating the software underpinning the Safe Driver Insurance Program,¹ as well as the software that manages electronic data transfers between MRB and courts, law enforcement agencies, the Division of Insurance’s Board of Appeals, financial institutions, and automobile insurers

MRB’s mission-critical and essential application system is ATLAS. According to the RMV’s Uninsured Motorist System User Manual, ATLAS consists of multiple components, including licensing, registration, titles, suspensions, accident records, inspection maintenance, non-renewals, policies, and MRB information. MRB information includes motor vehicle violation citations (civil and criminal), at-fault accident claim records, comprehensive claim records, and out-of-state incidents. The intended users of ATLAS include MRB’s staff, Trial Court administrators, the Division of Insurance’s Board of Appeals, and insurance companies and agents.

A division of MassDOT, MRB depends on MassDOT for its information technology needs (such as installing its workstations and software upgrades) and human-resource functions.

1. The Safe Driver Insurance Program is a program administered by the RMV that tracks an individual’s driving record and gives automobile insurers a framework so that they can charge individual customers additional surcharges on insurance premiums depending on their driving records.

 

Date published:	February 1, 2018