Stopping Insurance in Storage
 

I don't drive my mustang much. I have access to my wife's car and have a motorcycle.

I had to make a claim for an accident on my wife's car (100% at fault).

My next month insurance premium is insane, it has basically doubled so I want to put the mustang back in the garage for a while.

It was on a storage only policy but I changed it to drive the car again. However I am thinking of withdrawing the insurance totally and store it.

The car is fully paid for and the garage is under the house so no chance of falling trees. Has anyone else done this?

During the winter months, I suspend my car's insurance except for fire and theft.. Despite that my garage is covered under my homeowner's insurance, it does not cover my car.. Therefore if for some god forsaken reason the roof of my garage were to cave in due to a fire, I'd be without a car altogether without car insurance.. So if I were in your place, I wouldn't drop my car's insurance altogether, but keep at least fire and theft intact during storage for your own piece of mind..

The only problem I know with completely dropping your insurance, is that in the state where I live, insurance is required for the registration; so if you drop the insurance you are supposed to turn in the plates. Then if you put the car back on the road, you get new insurance and you have to get a new registration and new plates.

Here in Massachusetts you can cut back the insurance to a minimum level without having to turn in the plates . . . but the savings is not huge versus the normal insurance level.

This would be a good question to ask your insurance agent.

Here in PA. insurance is also required for registration.. Otherwise your registration becomes invalid along with the plates..

During winter while my car is in storage, I suspend my full coverage and collision portion, but keep liability, fire and theft in full force.. My full coverage portion then fully re-instates automatically every April 1st..

By doing this actually does save quite a bit compared to the normal insurance level, at least it does in my particular case anyhow..

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are still making payments on your car some obanks require that you keep full insurance on the car if you are still paying it off.

Well, ya'll beat me to the punch. It's the same here in North Carolina. And if you don't turn in your plates you get a visit from a nice North Carolina Highway Patrolman. :D

trackpack, good luck with the insurance. I have found no matter how you handle it they will get their increased fees. It sucks that you have the same insurance forever, and one day you make a claim they jump the premium for three years.

In Pennsylvania, all banks require full insurance whenever a vehicle is financed..

Honestly,.....I think that is the same from any bank in any state. They want to make sure THEIR investment isn't going to be damaged or whatever. Because if you're still paying the loan off, you technically don't own the car. The bank or loaner does.

OP,.....you should give Grundy Insurance a call or email. I'm saving 800 bucks a year by switching to them from Liberty Mutual Insurance. I pay 435 bucks a year and I valued the car at 43k. They require full payment up front.

:agree:

Tony ! I always thought your car had to be considered a classic to be eligible for Grundy classic car insurance :dunno:

The mustang is fully paid off. Three years a claim is on record?

Looks interesting. I guess they have multicar policies for mixed use now.

http://www.grundy.com/mvp/

Tennessee just passed a 'Law' this year (thank goodness) saying you have to have 'proof' of insurance to get a 'tag' for your car. I would be checking on how to do the 'legal' way to do the insurance on your Mustang :)

Thanks for the heads up, as I'm definitely going to look into this and find out if I can get better coverage and at a lower price than what I currently have with State Farm :nice:

It should be required in all 50 states IMHO

It should be required in all 50 states IMHO[/QUOTE]



It was a written law to have insurance on your vehicle for many years but it wasn't enforced until you had a wreck without insurance. Then the person would get a ticket for driving without insurance. Now, you can't get a tag or plate without insurance. My wife just got hit in the butt in October at a red light by a 'hit and run'. The police found the guy and he doesn't have insurance :(. We do have a thing called 'uninsured driver' we pay extra for that and it covered everything :)

Hopefully you'll be able to suit the S.O.B in small claims court who didn't have insurance, providing of course he has anything of value to begin with :dunno:

I 'think' he is going to be deported, he doesn't have a pot to 'piss in' . :shame:

Couldn't agree more and hope they deport the low life back to where ever they came from :nice:

In CT I have had Geico put me on a storage policy, which leaves comprehensive ON and takes off liability for the months your not driving. It does save you some money,normaly I pay about 150$ a month, in storage its about 20 bucks a month.

The only issue I get now is the moment I switch the policy to storage, geico servers send that info to DMV, and at that point DMV basically has me marked as uninsured motorist. I have to get Geico send a "proof of Insurance" and state its in storage and that I still maintain a comprehensive coverage.
First time 2 years back ,they sent me a registration suspension notice after 3 months, having me to get it resolved. Then same thing this year, only problem was I had put the car in storage and bought a new winter/DD car 2 weeks after. Could not get it registered at the dealer because of the "outstanding insurance compliance" at DMV. Took me almost 2 weeks back and forth with DMV over the phone to get it fixed.

The **** DMV makes me hate thinking of putting the car in storage now, every time I do it, and every time I put it back into full coverage, I got to send in "proof of insurance" letter from Geico to DMV, stating from what date storage policy started/ended, then a separate one for when the full coverage started, which I usually start of the month of April. Then constantly check my DMV record online to see if they really have cleared all the issues, dont want to get a suspension notice few months after.

I really feel for you and think your DMV in CT is really screwed up.. All they should be concerned about is knowing that your insurance policy is valid and in force.. So why in the hell should you have to pay extra for comprehensive coverage when your car isn't even on the road while it's in storage during the winter.. Doesn't make any sense at all :dunno:

Without comprehensive there'd be no coverage in the event of garage roof collapse, fire, or a flood. Homeowners insurance doesn't cover damage to a car that you own.

As an aside, I personally don't believe in removing coverage on a car for any reason other than the sale or loss of the vehicle, or when a usable vehicle is too old to have monetary value and the cost of physical damage coverage is no longer warranted. After 34 years as an auto insurance claims adjuster I've seen far too many 'Murphy's Law' scenarios that would compel me to take the risk, even if only temporarily.

I drive my Mustang as often as possible, weather permitting. It doesn't see snow or rain; as long as the roads are dry, even residual salt is of no concern. Last winter in NJ we had one of the most cooperative winters on record and so far this winter hasn't been to bad either. I'm leaving for Cape May today and the weather is supposed to be in the mid-60's this weekend. I'm not passing up the chance to put the top down in February.