Problems created when auto insurance lapses or is dropped on a vehicle - YouTube

hey there youtube fans it's mike palumbo again  and i just want to make a a brief video about um  

about the importance of maintaining insurance on  your car and the importance of staying away from  

having an insurance lapse before i get into  it it will really help us a lot if you like  

and subscribe especially subscribe and pass this  video around here your friends and come on make me  

go viral i mean shouldn't i shouldn't i be viral  come on shouldn't i of all the people out there  

be viral i think so anyhow um get down to a  little bit of business i know it's a little  

boring a little boring but you know if you live  in new york or any state really uh you're going  

to want to have notice information it's a  case study of a case i i just did you can't  

let your insurance lapse on your car in other  words auto insurance you got to pay your bill  

if you don't pay your bill you know what ends up  happening is uh the department of motor vehicles  

suspends your driver's license and anyone else  who's who license who's registered to the car  

like if you're married and you're paying the  bills and you know your spouse just has you know  

has delegated paying the insurance  bills to you and you failed to pay it  

your spouse gets their license suspended too also  the vehicle's registration gets suspended so it's  

a big it's a big problem if you end up if you end  up letting your insurance lapse and what happened  

with this guy was he was kind of really wasn't his  fault which is kind of rare most of the time it  

is the person's fault but in this guy's case what  happened was um a tree fell in his in his driveway  

and totaled his car so just one of those things  and the insurance company paid them off so the car  

was totaled and they take the car away you know so  they they once they pay they basically are buying  

it from you for book value that's what that's what  they're doing so they have a right to take the car  

and uh they you know they they salvage it and  whatnot so then he cancels insurance because he  

doesn't have the car anymore but he he hangs on  to the plates and he immediately goes and buys  

another car and his intent was to to to switch  his registration you know from for with those  

plates to his new car instead of re-restoring  the car because there's an unamateurized portion  

of the registration amount you paid on those  plates so if you hand those plates in and get  

a new set of plates you just kind of wasted some  money so but he couldn't do it because it was in  

person you know you had to go in person it was  during the pandemic so he got temporary plates  

on the other vehicle and they ended up moving to  upstate new york and the plates were back home  

and so he ended up re-rescuing the car after after  the temporary plates had expired anyhow and got  

plates on the car but what what but the problem  was even though the car was gone and off the road  

his insurance company should have told him hey  

we're going to cancel the insurance but you  got to hand your plates in or re-register  

your or or re-rescue your new vehicle with  those plates first because what happens is  

the dmv what triggers the dmv is the fact that  there you know there's no insurance being paid on  

on a car where the plates are have not been turned  in that's what that's what triggers the problem so  

what the insurance company did was they dropped  the insurance on them and they advised the dmv oh  

we dropped the insurance they probably  even advised and they totaled the car  

but the insurance services bureau of course you  know because the left hand never knows what the  

there's a salvage bureau at the dmv there's an  insurance services bureau they don't know i call  

these people all the time one hand doesn't know  what the other hand is doing all the insurance  

services bureau knows is oh there's been he  dropped coverage but he hasn't turned his plates  

in so what the dmv does is they send you a warning  they say hey uh hello mister hello mr jones  

you didn't pay your insurance or it looks like  you didn't pay your insurance that's what we have  

and if you don't fix this in 30 days we're  going to suspend your license and the vehicle's  

registration and that's what happened because  he moved upstate with the pandemic he moved  

in with some family upstate he wasn't staying  home so he didn't get he didn't get the notice  

and uh months later he's driving  around he gets pulled over speeding  

and the cops say hey your license is suspended  too uh something about an insurance lapse and he  

didn't know anything about it because he's driving  a car that has insurance and his other car is gone  

um and he contacts me so i said look you  gotta hand the plates in that's gonna  

that's gonna stop your your suspension period  from continuing on you're gonna be suspended  

indefinitely until you hand handles plates  in which he did right away now the problem is  

if you have an insurance lapse for 90 days  or less and you fix it in 90 days or less  

you could as soon as you fix it all you got  to do is paint eight dollar a day penalty for  

however many days you have the insurance labs and  they're they'll they'll immediately restore your  

your your driver's license or unsuspend your  license and unsuspend the vehicle registration  

but if it's more than 90 days you got a big  problem on your hands because you're suspended  

your license and the vehicle's registration is  suspended indefinitely until you hand the plates  

in and on the day you hand the plates in let's say  let's make an even numbers 100 days later you hand  

the plates in from that day for the next hundred  days your license and that vehicle's registration  

is suspended so you can't drive and they don't  give you conditional privileges they don't give  

you nothing you're done you're not driving legally  for 100 days and you can't register the car  

you can put insurance back on the car you  could drive the car with insurance but the re  

but the vehicle's registration is suspended  so it's a crime to drive the car but you can  

get you can go buy insurance but a lot of people  make that mistake they keep they keep the plates  

they didn't realize what happened they just get  another insurance policy oh i fixed it and then  

i've had people for 400 days their plates are  out 400 500 days like this they're out of the  

box for like a year and a half two years they're  not driving legally they're not driving that you  

can't sell the car either you can't sell a car  with a suspended registration you can't do it  

so you're done with that car it's just  nothing you can do um so he was over 90 days  

look i really need my license i go there's only  one thing you can do the insurance company should  

not have have let you drop the insurance without  at least advising you that you have to hand the  

plates in or register those plates to another car  first that they didn't do that as a matter of fact  

when you when you get rid of a car and you call  your insurance company and say yeah i got rid of  

the car under the insurance anymore they won't  even let you drop it until you you produce them  

there's a form the dmv hands you back when you  hang your plates in or if you mail it and they'll  

mail it back to you until they see that form  that and confirms that you have the plates in  

they won't even let you they they won't even  let you drop the insurance on it that's what  

an insurance company should do they're not  being greedy because they'll drop it back to  

the date you have the plates in so you know it's  not they're not just trying to get an extra five  

or six days or ten days out of you but they're  they're doing that's good customer service and  

and i think that ain't might be a an insurance  regulation they have to at least warn you of that  

and they didn't do it to this guy they just  they just took the insurance off the car without  

telling what he had to do because the car didn't  exist anymore so why should you pay for insurance  

but they should they they should have known so i  said look the only thing you could do is call the  

insurance company and say look you got to square  this away with the dmv you got to let me reinsure  

the vehicle you know you got to put insurance back  on the vehicle from from the day from the day it  

was suspended um or the day lapse to now because  and it's not really that uncommon that insurance  

companies make a mistake and there really was  an elapse on your part i got another one i'm  

gonna do another video in a very similar situation  and and it wasn't like this guy it's a different  

set of facts but the guy wasn't a fault either i  said when the insurance company makes a mistake  

they can tell the dmv oh our bad not his he had  the insurance on the car and they could fix it  

and it doesn't just close your suspension like  okay you were suspended for 90 100 days and now  

you're not suspended anymore it extinguishes it  extinguishes the suspension on on the registration  

and on your license like it never existed which  is important because if because that having a  

suspension although it's not a moving violation is  an insurance merit system violation which triggers  

insurance increases so and if you have a cdl even  a brief suspension of a few days could make you  

uninsurable to to commercial insurance policies  you could lose your job over license suspension  

over something like this so it's important  that if you really didn't make the mistake  

you don't just close the suspension you know that  it gets extinguished and removed from your record  

at first he called him and he got some clerk  someone on the phone like nothing we could do i  

go listen you call back you talk to a supervisor  and you tell them what you know that that  

they made the mistake not you and if they don't  fix this you're going to make a formal complaint  

to the insurance department i don't know what it  is but these are they i'm telling you listen i  

deal with insurance companies in other capacities  too and when they start screwing around me i and  

i don't i don't do it lightly and and whenever i  do it i threaten like i'm ready to do it because  

they're really screwing up i'm like listen my  next step this is all documented it's going to  

the insurance department and that always fixes it  i don't do it too much i don't you know i don't  

i don't i don't do it you know just to get  my way but but when they're screwing up  

because you're telling them hey i'm an informed  consumer i know what i can do you know i i  

i i i just think it says something about insurance  companies and well i do know that they find the  

crap out of the insurance department of new york  state will find the crap out of any little things  

so i guess it does filter down to the least  common denominator like why didn't fix this  

you know so he got supervisor online and and he's  i didn't have to go that far this person was like  

oh yeah we can fix it it's like oh yeah i could  see what happened yeah that's right yeah i see  

yeah we shouldn't have just took the insurance off  your car like that we should have you know made  

sure you transferred over so he didn't have to go  down that route so he got the second phone call he  

made he got something they were doing and within  a day it was totally extinguished off his record  

now i go to court because they gave a ticket for  driving without license the cop cut him a break  

didn't give him the ticket for didn't arrest  him for driving on a suspension but i think he  

just the cop just believed you know i intuitively  believe the guy was telling me so well i'll give  

you the ticket for driving without a license which  is an infraction but now i go to court and say  

yeah the whole thing was a mistake and i explained  to what happened look there is no record of  

suspension that there's nothing here so that will  get dismissed this is a standard parking ticket  

i'll knock it right down to a to a standard  speedy ticket i'll knock it right down to a  

parking ticket small fine got him back on the  road guided him on what he had to do um you  

know you know help them deal with the insurance  company and this is what i do this is why i love  

my job this is what i do this is what i live for  i live for the hard things i love to help people  

to get them through the the just just you know the  misery of this you know of of what can happen when  

you when you're just totally don't know what  to do and you're an administrative nightmare  

you call me i'll fix your license and if i can't  fix it i'll tell you we can't fix it i'll tell  

you why and i'll tell you what your next steps  are it will get resolved one way or another it  

might not be it might be a painful resolution  but at least you won't be in limbo you know you  

got you got an issue with the dmv you call us your  accuser driving on a suspension you don't know why  

call us you know there's some sort of insurance  problem if you did have an insurance lap get  

on the phone me right away i'll see you in the  right direction um so that's about it um michael  

palumbo attack that ticket dot com i'm i'm listen  channel's grown please subscribe please send us  

to your friends and if you have and look if you  wanna it doesn't have to be about traffic tickets  

maybe you're like a legal buff you just love the  law something you heard of something and you want  

to like know about it you know email me or drop  me a comment say hey why hey uh why don't you do  

a video about this i heard about this i heard  about any area of the law you know it doesn't  

matter and i'll do a video on it so you know it's  michael palumbo and um thanks again for watching