How to get around charges for lapse in coverage???

[here2helpyou]

Ok so I cancelled my car insurance because I couldn’t afford the payments. I’m pretty sure I told them I was just choosing to drive uninsured (really stupid, I know). They refunded 35$ for the rest of the month and terminated coverage that minute. I totaled my car about 2 months later. I paid off the guy I hit and sold the car to scrappers to avoid losing my license for a year and having my rates be crazyyyy when I do get another car.

How do I go about getting insurance for my new car without paying crazy fees or crazy monthly payments. (I wont be getting a new car for about 4 months, so about 6 months total lapse of coverage.) Should I call the insurance company and say the car broke down 2 months ago and that’s why I cancelled it, so that technically they don’t know I was driving uninsured? I’ve gotten parking tickets tho do they have access to those records? Should I get coverage with a different company when I do get new car insurance?. Pleaseee help me I’m out 12k already.

 

[yhjmkiop]

@here2helpyou It doesn’t matter why you had a lapse in insurance, just that you had one. It is on your record, and there’s no getting around that.

Parking tickets don’t affect your insurance rates.

Call an independent agent when you decide to get a new car, and BEFORE you go through with the purchase. Your rates will be high due to the lapse, so make sure that you can afford them before you go through with the car purchase to avoid making another stupid decision to drive uninsured again.

 

[here2helpyou]

@yhjmkiop Should I have just suffered the consequences and filled an accident report, or would that make my rates even higher when I do get another car, with the lapse and an accident?

 

[here2helpyou]

@yhjmkiop How much do you think the monthly will be if you had to guess

 

[yhjmkiop]

@here2helpyou I can’t guess. There’s so many things that go into insurance rates, and many are very sensitive to small changes too. Outside of being able to say what will hurt you and what will help, rates are unpredictable to the point I missed on my budgeting estimates for my own rate by over $50 both times I moved in 2023.

 

[sunnie101]

@here2helpyou A lapse is a lapse, does not matter the reason.

 

[former32%C2%B0mason]

@here2helpyou There's nothing you can do. Even if you didn't own a car, you should have purchased a non-owner's policy to maintain coverage. Companies don't care about the reason. You will have to deal with the higher premium for 6-12 months because of the lapse. This is a FAFO situation. That insurance policy probably looks cheap now compared to what you've had to pay and lost because you were uninsured. It's an expensive lesson.

 

[here2helpyou]

@former32%C2%B0mason God I feel so fucking stupid. If I had done about 5 minutes of research before canceling I would’ve figured out it’s a horrible idea. FML

 

[here2helpyou]

@former32%C2%B0mason Definitely an expensive lesson. About how much do you think my monthly will be when I do buy new insurance?

 

[former32%C2%B0mason]

@here2helpyou No way to know. There are dozens of factors individual to you that are rated differently at each company. All you can do is shop around.

 

[a43]

@here2helpyou They won’t care if you were driving or not necessarily. They will only care about the lapse of time you didn’t have insurance, whether you had a vehicle or not. That said, many of the companies are going to put 2 and 2 together to realize you had an accident during that lapse. That said, my advice while you are a few months out would be to look for a non-owner policy. This is liability insurance without a vehicle attached to it, and does count in terms of the insurance streak so that you’ve built it up prior to your vehicle purchase (ideally companies like to see you have been insured for 6 straight months for a big drop in quote prices). It means paying a lower monthly bill as opposed to just not being insured, but it will help you in the long run.

 

[here2helpyou]

@a43 So basically I pay for non owner insurance even though I don’t have a car and then when I do buy liability insurance it will be lower bc the lapse is less? Or does that mean it will take less time for the price to go down?

 

[a43]

@here2helpyou It won’t do much unless you maintain it for 6 months but then it will make a big difference when you get quotes.

 

[here2helpyou]

@a43 So if Im planning on buying a car before 6 months from now I should just wait to get full coverage insurance and deal with the high monthly payments for a year? Does the longer the lapse mean higher monthly? A year of high monthly is less than I thought it would be. will it go down to my original monthly after a year of full coverage? Any ideas how much it will be? Im praying for less than $400/mo it was $260/mo originally for full coverage liability. Thanks for helping me be more knowledgeable

 

[a43]

@here2helpyou The length of the lapse could make a difference, but it’s negligible at best. If you’re going to get a car sooner than 6 months I’d just take the first 6 months knowing that it’s going to be the highest premium you see, as continuous insurance builds up quickly. Don’t hesitate to check with multiple different companies also, they’re all looking at things in different ways. What state are you in?

 

[here2helpyou]

@a43 I am in Oregon

 

[a43]

@here2helpyou Yeah same difference, reach out to several companies and try going directly through the big companies rather than using a middle-man agent/broker.

 

[smiles917]

@here2helpyou Why do they charge you for not havibg insurance in the US surely it's none of theit business why you chose not to buy a policy

 

[mjb048]

@smiles917 because decades of experience with millions of drivers like OP have shown that people who go uninsured are riskier drivers and more likely to cause an accident

and what do you know! the insurers were right lol

 

[here2helpyou]

@smiles917 Becuase if you hit and injure someone you could owe about $500,000 in medical bills and they know no one could pay that. I was realllllly fucking stupid for canceling it.