The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Seadog on August 01, 2017, 01:02:23 PM
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I'm curious if such a thing exists as sort of "on-demand" or temporary car insurance? Basically the situation is that I travel a lot for work (ie my commute is a cab to the airport), and then when I'm not working travel a lot for fun. Hence I'm only "home" maybe a quarter of the time. I don't own a car, but might get one in the near future, and the idea of paying insurance for a full year, when I'm only in the same province maybe 1/4th of the year-and driving in a purely recreational manner at that, enrages my inner mustachian.
Does something exist that would suit me? Would insurance companies get pissed if I got a policy, cancelled it after a month, then did the same thing 2-4 months later, rinse and repeat ad infinitum?
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YMMV but here in NY, if you have a gap in insurance you must turn in your vehicles plates, then it costs money to re-register each time.
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To my knowledge no states allow you to keep a tag on a car without insurance because that leaves the possibility that you drive it without insurance. You could certainly drop your coverage to liability only while you're away as means of keeping insurance costs as low as possible.
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There are a couple options with a small monthly fee, then usage based. The most known is metromile, but they're only available in a handful of states.
edit: OP is in Canada. No idea on the options up there.
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How many days are you driving vs. away - like are you away for a few months, then back for a few weeks? Or are you back a day or two throughout the month?
If there is any consistency to it (and possibly even if not) here is what you can do:
You can ask the insurance company to downgrade your car to just comprehensive coverage, when you are out of town. It might be called "parking coverage". Then when you are going to use it, you add collision and liability back on. The comprehensive coverage is really cheap, so you pay barely any money.
I worked for The Co-operators. We did this all the time. Usually for more seasonal things like summer fancy cars and RVs. But it's possible with any car. They got new software a couple years ago that makes changes like this super easy.
I don't know what corporate or underwriters thought about this, but I didn't care, because I didn't have an onsite boss, and it took literally 2 minutes for me to change in the computer system. (I was a licensed insurance advisor.) It was all computerized, so no one really checked it.
It's also easier if you're on a monthly payment plan because then your next payment just gets adjusted. We didn't have to worry about payments or reimbursements at all then. Those were the best.
I think they may have even removed the extra charge from the monthly plan (I haven't worked there in a year now, so I'm not sure.)
Just make friends with your local office and if you are friendly about it, hopefully they will take care of you, like I would have.
The important thing is to make sure you are never actually driving it without the full liability coverage on it.
IIRC, we didn't have a way to put a time frame on the drop of coverage. You'd have to tell us when you were back in town.
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YMMV but here in NY, if you have a gap in insurance you must turn in your vehicles plates, then it costs money to re-register each time.
This must be a completely different system than Canada. How exactly would that even work? You call the insurance co to cancel insurance, and then they refuse to do it and/or stop billing you until you mail them proof that you are no longer in possession of the plates? What happens if you actually can't afford it and don't pay? The insurance company can't remove the insurance until they have proof the car is de-registered? Do motorcyclists have to go through this every season when they take their bikes out of storage?
I've taken insurance off my car once before when I was traveling for 3 months, and had it parked at work. Also I would only ever have liability anyways. I'm of the MMM opinion that all insurance is a losing proposition, and if you can't afford to lose something, you can't afford to own it.
And it would generally be for blocks of time, ie I work in the field/go on trips for 6-16 weeks, then might be home for 2-4 weeks.
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YMMV but here in NY, if you have a gap in insurance you must turn in your vehicles plates, then it costs money to re-register each time.
This must be a completely different system than Canada. How exactly would that even work? You call the insurance co to cancel insurance, and then they refuse to do it and/or stop billing you until you mail them proof that you are no longer in possession of the plates? What happens if you actually can't afford it and don't pay? The insurance company can't remove the insurance until they have proof the car is de-registered? Do motorcyclists have to go through this every season when they take their bikes out of storage?
I've taken insurance off my car once before when I was traveling for 3 months, and had it parked at work. Also I would only ever have liability anyways. I'm of the MMM opinion that all insurance is a losing proposition, and if you can't afford to lose something, you can't afford to own it.
And it would generally be for blocks of time, ie I work in the field/go on trips for 6-16 weeks, then might be home for 2-4 weeks.
Insurance companies report to the state when insurance is terminated. If the state sees you still have a tag they send a letter requesting proof of insurance. In Maryland the fine is steep, $150 for the first 30 days and $7 a day after that.