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President Barack Obama has signed a law repealing an outdated requirement that car dealerships keep on hand an information booklet about insurance.

The bipartisan legislation, H.R. 5859, passed the Senate in December by unanimous consent after the House passed it in July by voice vote.

The Obama administration supported the bill because, it said, the data in booklet is “rarely used and not useful.” The administration also stated “a prospective buyer does not need a brochure from the federal government to obtain this information, since insurance agents are trained to provide advice on how model selection affects insurance premiums.”

The requirement in a 1972 law directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to prepare, print and mail the booklet, Relative Collision Insurance Cost Information, to new-car dealerships annually. Dealers are required to provide it to their customers upon request or face a $1,000 per violation fine.

The legislation repealing the requirement was endorsed by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).

“The federal government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars since 1991 to print and mail this booklet to every new-car dealer in America, yet very few consumers ever ask for it,” said NADA Chairman Bill Underriner, a dealer from Billings, Mont.

Topics Auto