BajaNomad

Makes Ya wonder (insurance)

chuckie - 3-30-2014 at 02:36 PM

Got back in the USA this month, and had called my US Insurance agent to reinstate my Colorado coverage. I was told first, no way, except at a very high rate because the truck had been without insurance for a long time. I provided them with a copy of my Mexican policy, issued through Vagabundos, and they issued a policy. That policy was dated 3/12. I picked up my mail at my daughters on Friday last, and had a cancellation notice dated 3/18 because "you do not conform to our standards" HUH? I dont conform to a lot of peoples standards , but an insurance company? No tickets, no accidents, NADA.....Makes a guy want to head back to Baja. Since its Sunday, I havnt been able to contact the agent yet BUT any suggestions for US coverage? Truck is licenced in South Dakota....Thanks

woody with a view - 3-30-2014 at 05:58 PM

try a different agent....

durrelllrobert - 3-30-2014 at 07:06 PM

Chit, their exposure is limited just to those days that you are in the US. The rest of the time your MX insurance covers you. So, the question is why would you buy US insurance by the year? There's an agent in Ensenada that sell expats US approved insurance by the day and I'm sure that there are others in different locales. Also, the Dollar Boys at the Otay crossing sell it that way and you don't even have to get out of car.

DavidE - 3-31-2014 at 11:16 AM

Which ripoff company is this. Chuckie?

motoged - 3-31-2014 at 11:32 AM

Whenever I have insured a vehicle in Mexico, I have been told it also has to be concurrently insured in Canada/USA if I am a "visitor to Mexico". Is this situation one where the vehicle is "Mexican" and Mexico is it's "home" ?

chuckie - 3-31-2014 at 12:36 PM

Its Farmers insurance..I have taken all the stuff to another agent...Moto? No thats not the case, Its a US plated vehicle, I am a Colorado resident, no tickets, no claims...They seem to be trying to force me into a risk pool at 4 times the rate I was paying before....Wont happen....

msteve1014 - 3-31-2014 at 12:40 PM

You are a Colorado resident with South Dakota plates, and no U.S insurance for how long? Why would they help you?

MitchMan - 3-31-2014 at 03:33 PM

Doesn't Colorado require that if you are a Colorado resident (implication meaning that you have a Colorado physical residence) and you have a current Colorado drivers license that any vehicle that you drive while on Colorado streets must be a Colorado plated vehicle? If so, that would mean that your driving your South Dakota plated vehicle on Colorado streets is not Colorado legal. Therefore, how could any US insurance company agree to insure your South Dakota plated vehicle if your using that insurance by driving your South Dakota plated vehicle on Colorado streets is illegal?

A basic tenet of contract law is that the object/actions of a contract must be legal or they are not enforceable by law. At best, a contract could be written where the object is not legal, and the insurance company could collect your money, but Colorado courts would not force or enforce claim payment to you if you had an accident that was covered by the terms of your contract (insurance policy).

[Edited on 3-31-2014 by MitchMan]

chuckie - 3-31-2014 at 03:42 PM

One post would have been enough, but no thats not the problem. The insurance company is aware that it has SD plates with a COLORADO address. They dont care. FYI. When licencing my Van, which is in Mexico, the Mexican insurance policy was good enough for the State DMV....You must be a lawyer....Also FYI, I walked over to the Custer County Sheriffs office and asked them if it was legal as registered....With a Colorado address? They didnt care either.....

DavidE - 3-31-2014 at 05:03 PM

Chuckie, 20th Century pulled the same crap on me several years ago. I switched to Lizard Insurance and have had no problems. I told the telephone agent when I wasn't hospitalized I only drove back and forth to the emergency room.

MitchMan - 3-31-2014 at 05:27 PM

Chuckie, my situation is very similar to yours, the difference being that I am a resident of Calif with a Calif drivers license. I too have a vehicle in Baja that has SD license plates and an SD registration with my Calif address on it. If I were to drive that vehicle from La Paz to Calif and then within Calif, I too could get a policy or daily insurance coverage from a US ins company that would ostensibly say in writing that I was covered while driving that vehicle on Calif streets.

The problem is that if stopped by CA Highway Patrol or any other Calif street cop while driving that vehicle on Calif streets, my vehicle would be and certainly could be impounded because it is not allowable for a Calif licensed Calif resident with a physical Calif residence to drive any owned vehicle on Calif streets that is not registered/plated by Calf. It is my understanding that most states, if not all states follow the same policy. Even Mexico has that policy for itself.

Sounds to me like you did "cursory verbal" due diligence that seemed to indicate that you are "OK", but not sure if your research and verbal responses are legally sufficient. But, what would be "certain" and "legally sufficient" is if you saw the written law that coincides with your obtained verbal responses.

I have the same issue as you do, but I looked up the law...not that hard. I have done enough legal and tax work to absolutely know that if it is not backed up in code or official current written specific on-point pertinent policy, there is absolutely no certainty at all.

When I did tax research and compliance for a US based conglomerate with 260 corporations that operated in every state in the US and in six countries, we would never ever correspond with the IRS over the phone...never because you cannot legally rely on any verbal statement from anyone, even if it were stated by the US Treasurer himself. The only substantiation that you can count on is what is written code or policy.

Not trying to argue with you, not trying to prove you wrong, just stating what I know.

The whole point of insurance is not simply to stay "legal", but to "actually" have legally enforceable ins policy that will pay your claim, especially if it is a serious accident. Personally, I don't care if ins is legally required by the state, I want the ins COVERAGE to be "actual" and legally enforceable. I would assume that is what you want too. Verbals by anyone are not legally enforceable on their own, only written code and policy. That is all I am saying.

Udo - 3-31-2014 at 06:19 PM

Here is what I was told by Mercury Ins. in California:
Since I can prove my residency in Mexico, and my vehicles are registered in South Dakota, plus I have Sd driver's Lic., I need to speak to the SD Mercury agent about part-time coverage.

chuckie - 3-31-2014 at 06:41 PM

I wouldnt call going to the Sheriffs office and asking the question a "cursory" check....

Hook - 3-31-2014 at 08:20 PM

You might try going through AARP and Hartford insurance. I dont know how they will treat you in this case as I have had continuous US insurance since I moved to Mexico.

JZ - 3-31-2014 at 08:20 PM

CA is strict on the plates issue from another state. Maybe CO is different.

bajaguy - 3-31-2014 at 09:55 PM

I believe Elena Betts in Ensenada sells US trip insurance for up to 30 days. We have friends in Ensenada who have a SD plated vehicle and use her for insurance when shopping/trips to the US
Quote:
Originally posted by Udo
Here is what I was told by Mercury Ins. in California:
Since I can prove my residency in Mexico, and my vehicles are registered in South Dakota, plus I have Sd driver's Lic., I need to speak to the SD Mercury agent about part-time coverage.

MitchMan - 3-31-2014 at 10:03 PM

It all depends on the actual written law...that is controlling. Verbal representations hold no wait on their own. If they did, we wouldn't need codified law, written contracts, congress to make laws, judicial system to decide on cases concerned with the written law, and the Constitution, state and federal, would have no place in our society.

Very surprising if Colorado wouldn't rely on their codified law and instead followed only what was said by sheriffs at sheriff offices. Furthermore, research that is not supported by verified fact and only on verbal unverified representations have no weight in just about any field.

chuckie - 4-1-2014 at 03:00 AM

How do you know that what the Sheriff said isnt "codified law"? You must be a lawyer....

Pescador - 4-1-2014 at 07:17 AM

Geez, this was not a discussion about whether or not Chuckie's vehicle is legal. Get off of the South Dakota stuff. It is because he did not have the vehicle insured with a US policy and when he goes back on he gets put in a R-22 factor. He needs to find a different agent, and in Colorado, where I was an agent, I would try State farm and Progressive. Be sure to start with the fact that you had Mexican coverage for the whole time and now are moving back to the states and should not have to go into a risk pool. If that continues, then you can always sell the truck to your daughter for $1, and then buy it back and start with a clean slate, but that could take a few days and I would only use it as a last resort.

vandenberg - 4-1-2014 at 08:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by MitchMan


The problem is that if stopped by CA Highway Patrol or any other Calif street cop while driving that vehicle on Calif streets, my vehicle would be and certainly could be impounded because it is not allowable for a Calif licensed Calif resident with a physical Calif residence to drive any owned vehicle on Calif streets that is not registered/plated by Calf.


One of the reasons we use our Mexican DL's when we travel in Ca. with our Dakota plates.:saint:

MitchMan - 4-1-2014 at 10:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chuckie
How do you know that what the Sheriff said isnt "codified law"? You must be a lawyer....

That's the point, Chuckie...you don't know.

It appears that verbal info is good enough for you, fine. But, if certainty is what you really want, then you need to know what the law really says, especially in the case of a serious accident, right?

Pescador, since you were a Colorado ins agent, do you know with certainty if Colorado has the same requirement as Calif and other states that if you are a Colorado resident with a Colorado physical residence and you have a current Colorado drivers license that any vehicle that you drive while on Colorado streets must be a Colorado plated vehicle in order to be driving legally in Colorado?

chuckie - 4-1-2014 at 10:24 AM

Since none of this current discussion has anything to do with my getting insurance, I'll drop out...As I said, neither of the insurance agents have a problem with the way the truck is licenced, I dont either....Snow Thursday the man says......

Pescador - 4-1-2014 at 08:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by MitchMan
Quote:
Originally posted by chuckie
How do you know that what the Sheriff said isnt "codified law"? You must be a lawyer....

That's the point, Chuckie...you don't know.

It appears that verbal info is good enough for you, fine. But, if certainty is what you really want, then you need to know what the law really says, especially in the case of a serious accident, right?

Pescador, since you were a Colorado ins agent, do you know with certainty if Colorado has the same requirement as Calif and other states that if you are a Colorado resident with a Colorado physical residence and you have a current Colorado drivers license that any vehicle that you drive while on Colorado streets must be a Colorado plated vehicle in order to be driving legally in Colorado?


See, here is the problem, it has nothing to do with insurance and instead has to do with licensing requirements which is a whole different agency. Colorado gives you 30 days to bring up your vehicle to local registration, but again, that has nothing at all to do with insuring a vehicle. Also, if you have a reason to have SD plates because you have business there, then they have a tendency to not do too much about it. That is the responsibility of the Colorado State Patrol and Chuckies original question had to do with Vehicle insurance and I thought it a novel idea to keep on topic.

chuckie - 4-2-2014 at 06:58 AM

Spot on dude....Very novel idea..stay on topic.....Be back down in December.....Seeya

MitchMan - 4-2-2014 at 10:27 AM

Helpful answer, Pescador. It sounds like you are saying that that states' ability to control licensing and the ability of insurers to contractually insure are separate in that the status of one doesn't have any impact/affect on the other. You said that, in this thread, we should 'get off the South Dakota stuff' but in Chuckie's first post he saw fit to mention it himself...if it didn't matter to him, why mention it? Also, a couple of other posts addressed the issue of SD plates as a possible factor.

In what little research that I have done, your take that licensing and insuring are separate and in a sense mutually exclusive seems to be the majority of what I have read. But I have also read that in some instance insurers can and have successfully denied claims where the claimant driver did not have proper registration pursuant to the letter of the law of the state where the accident occurred and therefore wasn't legally permitted to be driving the vehicle in the first place.

The thing to keep in mind, however, is that while the states have separate agencies to administer facets of government (i.e., Dpt of Ins, DMV), those separate agencies are not at all limits to the reach of the law. In this case, contract law (an ins policy is a contract) and its enforceability...not at all limited in any way by separation of agencies.

While it is clear that Chuckie's first post was limited to his asking for help in getting reasonable insurance in his situation, I think that whether or not the insurance itself, once obtained, is enforceable is quite to the point and very pertinent.

BTW, not at all unusual, but more often than not, threads on this forum frequently explore pertinent tangential aspects of the main thread...we all know that.

[Edited on 4-2-2014 by MitchMan]

chuckie - 4-2-2014 at 12:45 PM

Gotta be a lawyer....

MitchMan - 4-2-2014 at 01:29 PM

No, Chuckie, not a lawyer. Just someone who pays attention to detail and tries to get the facts straight. What will hurt you is what you don't know.

DavidE - 4-2-2014 at 01:57 PM

Try GEICO Chucky. That way you won't need an AMPARO nor the SUPREMES to have coverage.

chuckie - 4-3-2014 at 08:48 AM

Good advice, GEICO, from a couple of folks...Thanks....We are talking.....

chuckie - 4-4-2014 at 03:01 AM

Local agent bound coverage at less than 50% of what i was quoted...Nada mas problemas....Thanks to all.....FYI: This agent also said they didnt care where the vehicle was licenced as long as the "home" address was correct.