Not saving a bunch of money on my car insurance...

December 12, 2007 7:08 PM

Car in PA, registered in DC, now living (and insured) in NY. Geico wants a LOT of money from me. I don't want to pay NY rates. What can I do?

I have Geico insurance. I moved to NYC in August and left my car at my girlfriend's parent's house in Pennsylvania. I have a DC license, a New York address, and DC tags on the car. (Yes, I realize that the DC tags and registration are probably illegal, as is the DC license technically. Please don't lecture me.)

The plan is, and has been for months, to get it out to California for my girlfriend to use while she's in graduate school. Unfortunately, until that happens, Geico picked up my change of address and is charging me for NYC insurance. I think they assume that I've registered the car in NY too. This costs $900/yr more than DC did, and this is something that I don't particularly want to spend money on, if possible. I can afford it, but just barely, and I don't want to spend extra money on insurance for a car that's not and never will be in the city it's insured in.

What are some good options -- other than selling the car, which I'm not prepared to do -- to deal with this insurance nightmare?

Bonus points for good suggestions for getting it out to Cali.

posted by kdar to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

You're not likely to get an answer to this question that qualifies as "legal" - which kind of violates the rules here...but...maybe find a friend's address in DC (or take out a PO Box), call Geico and tell them that is your new address. As long as the car is only being driven in DC, theoretically this solves your problem - you just have to get your bills through your friend's address.

As for getting it out to Cali, there are lots of services (google a little) that will provide drivers to transfer your car. You could get it shipped to save the couple thousand miles on it, but that's gonna cost more.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:19 PM on December 12, 2007

Car's currently not being driven, right? So here's the play:

Man up, collect the plates from the car, take them and registration to DC Motor Vehicles on a Monday morning, turn them in, THEN cancel the insurance, and take the Chinatown bus home. When it's time, have car shipped to California and register it there. That's what adults do.
posted by mojohand at 7:40 PM on December 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

OFF TOPIC: You probably know all this, but if the car's going to sit unused for more than a few weeks, it'd be very wise to change the oil and dump a bottle of STABIL fuel stabilizer in the tank. Run it for five miles or so, and fill the tank completely up. (And if you can fill it with gasoline that doesn't have ethanol in it, that'd be even better, but good luck with that.) Your girlfriend will be much happier when she ultimately gets your car.
posted by mojohand at 8:02 PM on December 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Call GEICO and tell them the car is currently garaged in Pennsylvania. The car's location controls the rates you will pay, not your mailing address. Ask for a retroactive correction (and refund) going back to August.

There's no requirement to pay the insurance rates that are in effect at your mailing address. There's also no need to pretend you live in DC. What matters is the car's location.

Also, what mojohand said. If the car's not being driven, you don't need to insure it.
posted by JimN2TAW at 8:23 PM on December 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

With GEICO, the change of address is automated- they get the notice from the Post Office, try to contact you, and if they don't hear back, they change it. But JimN2TAW has it. The garaged location is what matters, so tell GEICO where it is now, and they should adjust your garaged address and bill accordingly. You might be required to fill out a Garaged Location Affidavit, though, because there are a lot of people in NY who try to duck out on paying those rates by giving incorrect addresses.

Then, yeah. If no one is driving the car, cancel the plates and ditch the insurance altogether. The only concern there is that if you're planning on driving it again anytime soon, you may end up paying a higher insurance premium (depending on who you insure with) for "no prior insurance". This might affect your girlfriend if she's on your insurance currently as well.

Another caveat: if you're making car payments still, don't cancel the insurance. Lienholders require Comp and Collision coverage and may purchase it on your behalf for a lot more money.
posted by mewithoutyou at 10:13 PM on December 12, 2007

Also: if your girlfriend will be driving your car, and she's not on the insurance, you'll need to add her to your policy.
posted by mewithoutyou at 10:14 PM on December 12, 2007

IAAIA, but not your agent. What you want to do, is remove the license plates and turn them back into the DMV. Call GEICO and cancel the insurance. When you do this, tell them that the car never left PA, and they should do an adjustment for you. When you want to drive it again, re-register it, call GEICO up, and there you have it. If you do this within 6 months from beginning to end, you reinstate the policy, and you don't have to say anything about having a lapse in insurance.

Under no circumstances are you to cancel the insurance before you have turned the plates in.

The question this all hinges on is if anyone is driving the car currently. If that's the case, you need to keep the insurance.

Your other option is something called a storage policy. Essentially you tell them the car is in storage, not being driven, while you are out of state. They will suspend your liability insurance, but leave comprehensive coverage in the event Bad Stuff^TM happens (tree falls on your car while it's garaged). They will charge you the rates for the location of the car, so you'd have PA rates, not NY.
posted by sephira at 5:48 AM on December 13, 2007

The advice to totally cancel the insurance kind of sucks. What if a tree falls on it, or it is stolen? Most places will let you get insurance for just this purpose (i.e. not for driving but for letting your car sit around) and it's usually dirt cheap. No idea how reasonable Geico is, but you should be able to get it from some other insurer if not from them.
posted by iknowizbirfmark at 8:13 AM on December 13, 2007

I've done storage with Geico before when I was out o country. It wasn't full-price, but it was like 30% (i think) of that regular insurance price.
posted by waylaid at 7:36 AM on December 19, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks for advice, all. Here is what I did:

1. Mothballed the car.
2. Had the license plates removed and mailed them to DC.
3. Called up Geico and cancelled the insurance (and am currently investigating alternate ways to insure the car against just theft for PA).
4. Car is now stored on a secure property and will be shipped to CA sometime in the next two months, barring any unforeseen complications.

Geico's policies forbid them from recognizing that my car is in another state without a receipt from a garage where it's being stored. I'm currently talking to their management structure -- which isn't being very helpful, unsurprisingly -- about getting the rates for the time it was in PA retroactively applied. I can't say I'm particularly pleased about their policies, but really, at this point it's their game and I'm just trying to recoup as much money as possible.
posted by kdar at 6:11 PM on December 23, 2007