Q: After I switched to another insurance company, they told the DMV I had an uninsured vehicle months ago. Nothing I could show them could convince DMV and the Driver License Office that I had had insurance until my vehicle title was changed over because the insurance company lied. It cost me $150.

A: First, insurance companies are not out to get you and don’t purposely lie to the government.

If you can produce proof of coverage there should be a refund of the fee you paid, but I am not sure exactly the story behind why they would not accept your proof of coverage. When I have worked with my insurance clients and the DMV for proof of coverage I have rarely had an issue with them accepting a faxed copy of the client’s declarations page from me.

Now if the title was not in your name with the DMV, then yes, they would have trouble matching up your proof of coverage to the vehicle as the information does not match. But if your title was changed over and you had proof of coverage from the time the title was in your name, you are owed a refund.

I would escalate this to higher up in the DMV if you did indeed have coverage that you are not getting credit for. On the other side, if your car insurance company is not providing proof for the correct days talk to a supervisor there.

Q: My boyfriend injured his leg and can’t drive his work truck (it’s a manual) because the constant shifting hurts. Can I put him on my insurance for 2 weeks -1 month max (muy car is automatic and has cruise control) so he can use it while he is on the mend? I just bought the car brand new off the lot and it is obviously fully covered.

A: You can actually put anyone you want on your car insurance policy if they are driving your vehicle on a regular basis, regardless of if they are living in your household with you or not. The only exceptions to this are drivers that your insurance company deems too dangerous to drive because of a bad driving record. These are the drivers that the companies see as just too high of a risk to want to insure.

Now, the other issue in this is how your boyfriend is planning on using the vehicle. You say that it is to replace his work truck, so will he be using the vehicle for work? If the vehicle is used for business it is usually not going to be covered under a personal car insurance policy, but it depends on the business usage. This is something you need to talk to your car insurance agent or car insurance company about to make sure you have adequate coverage on your vehicle while he is driving it and that his usage activity is not something that is excluded from your policy. If it is excluded from your car insurance policy and he is in an accident, the insurance company has the right to deny paying for the claim.

Welcome to the world of needing an SR-22, not that you are going to enjoy being here.

An SR-22 is not an insurance coverage nor is it part of your insurance coverage. It is a filing that your insurance company does on your behalf to the state telling them that you do indeed have insurance coverage. Things usually get to this point because you have seriously misbehaved behind the wheel and now the state is going to keep an eye on you for a few years to make sure that you at least have car insurance coverage.

Not all States Have SR-22

An SR-22 is a financial responsibility verification and it is not called the same thing in every state. Some states call it an FR-44 and other states call it an FR-19. Your state will tell you exactly what you need in the documents they provide you when they tell you that you now have to have a financial responsibility filing on your policy.

The Cost of an SR-22

There is no set cost for an SR-22 filing. The average cost is about $25 per policy period, but that varies by state. It’s really not the SR-22 filing cost that is going to get you though, it’s what you did to earn the need to have to have an SR-22 filing. People that need a financial responsibility filing have usually earned a DUI/DWI or other very serious infraction. Once whatever you did shows up on your driving record and your insurance company finds out about it, that’s when you will see your rate increase and usually increase by a lot, on top of the SR-22 filing fee.

Q: I am not happy with the way my car insurance claim is going, I don’t think that I am being treated fairly and it’s my own company. Is there anything I can do?

A: It all depends on what you mean by “being treated fairly”. If you feel that the claims adjuster is rude, condescending or discriminating, demand to speak to their supervisor to complain or ask to be assigned to a new claims adjuster. You paid for this insurance coverage and you do not have to put up with being treated badly by your own company.

If the claims adjuster refuses to let you speak to their supervisor, contact your car insurance agent for help. They have more resources available to them to get you to who you need to speak with and they are not going to want to lose your business.

If you feel the numbers the claims adjuster is coming up with for a totaled vehicle is not fair, it is up to you to prove why. Gather current selling price for the same exact year, make and model of vehicle you have from 3 different dealers and/or private sellers. Also look up the Kelley Blue Book value of the vehicle. Arm yourself with information to give to the adjuster to get your fair settlement.

If you feel you are not being treated fairly in regards to medical bills from your car insurance claim being paid and you get no help from a supervisor, it’s time to contact your state insurance commissioner and file a complaint.

Q: Why doesn’t the declarations page of my car insurance policy tell me what is covered under my car insurance policy?

A: It all comes down to expenses. The declarations page of your car insurance policy gives the policy specific details of what your coverages are and what they cost. The declarations page is also only a few pages, so it is not all that expensive to mail out to you every 6 to 12 months.

The legal contact part of your car insurance policy, however, can be 20 to 70 pages. This is much more expensive to mail out and if you multiple that by how many clients an insurance company has, the expenses can be astounding. So to save money, insurance companies only send out the declarations pages when your policy renews. These are really the only pages that change at renewal, so unless there is a revision in the policy contract there is really no reason to send the same contract packet out to you every 6 to 12 months.

Besides, if they sent out the same packet to you twice a year with the same information you would probably just trash that part of the packet and keep just the declarations pages anyways. Making it a waste of money and a waste of resources.

If you have lost the legal contract part of your car insurance policy that the insurance company did provide you with when you first purchased the policy, your car insurance agent can provide you with a copy of it for your records.