So, we changed insurance companies when we moved. We went from one major, nation-wide insurance company to another not-quite-as-large-but still-large insurance company.
I mention this because once again, I don’t know why insurance is a necessity beyond the insurance companies making it a legal requirement that you must carry insurance.
While the wife was in the hospital and long-term care we got a notice from the State Department of Transportation saying they couldn’t determine that she had insurance on her car for a date after we moved, but before we changed insurance companies. We were being fined because of this.
We had insurance on the car. I went to our new insurance company and had them send a FS-1 form proving we had insurance. I figured that was the end of it.
No. Next month, we got a second notice from the DoT, saying we hadn’t proved she had insurance coverage. We had to get the previous company, you know, the major nation-wide company, to send in the form. Fine. I spent an hour and a half on hold after calling their 800 number, waiting to get someone on the phone before hanging up. I then tried getting someone at one of the local offices to send in the form. Got ahold of an agent several towns away, and they said they’d send in the form for us. OK, great. Problem solved.
You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you, my Hordeling? I did.
So, the next month, we get yet another notice from the DoT saying we were still being fined. WTF?
I called the big nation-wide insurance company again. I talked to a specialist in one of their departments. It turns out that when we got the insurance policy we were in Texas. We’ve been going back and forth between Texas and our current location for years, spending part of the year (mainly Summer) here and the other part of the year (mainly Winter) in Texas.
It turns out, because the insurance policy was taken out in Texas, we can’t use it in our new location. Again, this isn’t a little ‘Mom and Pop’ insurance company. They provide coverage for drivers nation-wide. If we’d had an accident driving between here and there, the insurance company would cover it. What does it matter that the policy originated in Texas or not? We’re required to have insurance in both places.
We ended up having to pay the fine because of this. We had insurance on the car and we still had to pay the fine. Just because the policy originated in another state shouldn’t matter. This is just stealing more of our money with no recourse for getting it back.
In addition, I missed getting our monthly payment last month in on time. I’d thought we’d set up auto-pay but apparently not. I found out because I logged in to my account to see when the next payment was due. When I did this I got a notification that our policy was cancelled and needed to be reinstated. What? They can’t send me an email or something saying that payment is due before they cancel the policy? I made the past due payment online but got a note that it was ‘processing’ instead of being paid. As a consequence of this I got a text from our agent the next day saying our policy was no more, and to call the office to get it reinstated.
I called them, told them I’d made the payment online the previous night and asked to have the policy reinstated. “Oh, the corporate office will handle that.”
Grrrrr.
Insurance as an industry needs to be disbanded and done away with.
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