I bought a motorcycle Sunday. I called my insurance company on the way home and had them add it to an existing policy. I then printed my insurance card showing my bike was covered.

Today, I go to my county tax office to title and register the bike. They tell me that I can title it, but I will have to come back to register it. I ask why, and the answer is "We dont know that it has insurance yet because it isn't updated in our system."

My response is to hand them my insurance card as proof. Nope, that doesn't work because the effective date on the policy (since it was pre-existing) is more than 30 days ago. Why does that matter? No one can tell me, but it is an absolute that for some insane reason, matters. So, my proof of insurance is not proof of insurance.

In the end I leave the office, with a title that will be mailed to me, and a promise that if I come back in a week, my insurance should reflect in the GA system and THEN I can register it. At least the title got done, so it wasn't a complete waste of time...just close to one.

That sucks.

NM doesn’t accept the proof cards on the phone app. Bugs the shit out of me.

We do that sort of thing at the DMV . Every trip to the DMV has the possibility of being epic .

Montana used to require proof to license. Then the figured out that people bought a policy and immediately cancelled it a day or two later. Waste of everyone’s time.

Sorry, in some of the high insurance cost States(MI) it has been fairly common to get a policy, with cards, then cancel it. The driver would then try to get by with just ‘proof of insurance’ cards.

I think the cops have a way of checking if the policy is active.

Back to the DMV, experience varies by State. As a kid, MI was about the worst. I was visiting Mom 6 months ago in MI, went to the DMV to plate a car I gave her. There was just one customer there, and one clerk working the counter. When it was our turn the clerk said we had to schedule an appointment online to come in to the DMV? I was cordial, but looked at him inquisitively. He said he would fit us in. That part was nice.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
Sorry, in some of the high insurance cost States(MI) it has been fairly common to get a policy, with cards, then cancel it. The driver would then try to get by with just ‘proof of insurance’ cards.

My neighbor is in law enforcement and I had an interesting convo with him about this. He stated that most of the time the cancellation is generated by the insurance company for failure to pay. The driver makes the initial payment, gets the card, the insurance company uploads to the State's tracking system, the driver makes no more payments, insurance cancels for failure to pay...

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
Sorry, in some of the high insurance cost States(MI) it has been fairly common to get a policy, with cards, then cancel it. The driver would then try to get by with just ‘proof of insurance’ cards.

This question is hypothetical: Why shouldn't I be able to pull up the Progressive app, and show them the policy is active and the bike is covered under it? This is what I tried to do, yet they wouldnt take it. Monumentally stupid, and the fact that I have to be so inconvenienced to cater to the lowest common denominator of clowns who cancel their insurance is what's the most frustrating part about it.

Blame you insurance company, they are supposed to transmit your policy info to the state. Your card is useless

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:

Your card is useless

Every time that I have had an interaction with police (traffic stop, accident, DUI checkpoint, etc.) I have been asked for driver license, vehicle registration, and insurance card.

In Louisiana , if you have a registered motor vehicle then you better have an active policy . If your policy lapses it gets reported to the DMV and your license gets flagged . When you try to renew your DL you will have to pay a fine .

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:

Your card is useless

Every time that I have had an interaction with police (traffic stop, accident, DUI checkpoint, etc.) I have been asked for driver license, vehicle registration, and insurance card.

The flaw in your logic is that you're assuming receiving the insurance card is the end point for the officer's determination of whether or not the driver is insured. I'll bet you $20 that if the computer in their cruiser is working then the card is being matched to the system.

I went to the DMV here in Illinois once and the clerk tried to kick me out because I had a cup of coffee and they had a sign saying "No food or drinks allowed".

I tossed the coffee in my backpack and said "OK. I no longer have a drink." As much as he wanted to, the clerk could no longer make me leave.

Luckily, the coffee cup wedged against something in my backpack and didn't spill. As I was leaving, I pulled it out, looked at the clerk, smiled and took a drink.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

Every time that I have had an interaction with police (traffic stop, accident, DUI checkpoint, etc.) I have been asked for driver license, vehicle registration, and insurance card.

The flaw in your logic is that you're assuming receiving the insurance card is the end point for the officer's determination of whether or not the driver is insured. I'll bet you $20 that if the computer in their cruiser is working then the card is being matched to the system.

The card itself may or may not be definitive, but if a driver is unable to produce a card, s/he will be ticketed.

That happened to me once. I thought that I had put the card in the glovebox with the owners' manual, couldn't find it, got a ticket. I showed up in court with proof that the vehicle had been insured without interruption in coverage, and I paid some sort of small nuisance fee for not having the card available to show the officer when it was requested. Florida requires that the driver be able to show an insurance card on request. An image of the card on a smartphone or tablet is acceptable, both for a traffic stop and at the DMV when registering a vehicle.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
Sorry, in some of the high insurance cost States(MI) it has been fairly common to get a policy, with cards, then cancel it. The driver would then try to get by with just ‘proof of insurance’ cards.

I think the cops have a way of checking if the policy is active.

Back to the DMV, experience varies by State. As a kid, MI was about the worst. I was visiting Mom 6 months ago in MI, went to the DMV to plate a car I gave her. There was just one customer there, and one clerk working the counter. When it was our turn the clerk said we had to schedule an appointment online to come in to the DMV? I was cordial, but looked at him inquisitively. He said he would fit us in. That part was nice.

Cops do have means to check if a tag has active insurance on it and the power to pull a car over for not being insured. The city of Detroit doesn't do this very often but some of the surrounding communities will use this to motivate the shady types from driving into those cities. Basically if you look like a working stiff they'll ignore you. If you look like you might be looking to steal some cars after dark you'll get lots of attention.

How could the cops trust the motorist to show them on the app(your phone) that the policy is active? Everything can be manipulated to show whatever. If being serious, the police would need their own way to check if the policy is active.

I don’t get stopped much, trying to keep it that way.

At 66 y.o. I've come to realize that getting old is all about jumping through hoops , county, state ,feds,
Retail, simple services .

All this "progress"
Is going to be the death of me

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
In Louisiana , if you have a registered motor vehicle then you better have an active policy . If your policy lapses it gets reported to the DMV and your license gets flagged . When you try to renew your DL you will have to pay a fine .

Yup. When I switched registration from CA to AZ and updated my insurance policy, I quickly got a letter from CA saying I don't have insurance.

Here in Indiana the card will get you plates at the BMV. Beyond that, they are basically useless, because like many have said, there's nothing stopping a person from getting insurance to get the card and then cancelling it a week later. As a patrol cop in my state, I also have no way to look up whether or not someone's insurance is active or not while I'm on the side of the road with them. If they're unable to provide proof of insurance, I CAN cite them for not having it, but I have no way of ensuring that a policy on a card that they provided is active.

Unless I have some specific reason to believe that they might not be insured (unregistered vehicle, prior convictions or suspensions for not having insurance, unlicensed driver, etc.), I typically don't ask for it on traffic stops. I always do on accidents because I need the policy number and carrier name for the report.

Anyone who is cited for a traffic infraction has to prove coverage to the court as part of paying or contesting their ticket. If someone is involved in a crash, the BMV requires the insurance company to report that the policy was active, and if it turns out it's not (or the insurance company is slow or forgets ) the driver gets suspended for not having coverage. So the verification of coverage and enforcement typically happens within the bureaucracy on the back-end, not on the roadside.