Geico Leaves Me Without Insurance
by Michelle
I'm not quite sure what to do here. I was involved in an accident on the interstate in February of 2010. At the time I had full coverage insurance through Geico. There were no other vehicles involved, just a guardrail. Shortly after my accident I was dropped from Geico. Now, over a year after the accident, I'm being mailed an invoice from the Florida Department of Transportation requesting me to pay damages my insurance company should have covered. Why am I even seeing this paperwork? How should I go about resolving this issue? Hi Michelle, Wow! The state of Florida must be really hard up for cash if they are chasing you down a year later for damage to a guardrail as the result of an accident. Almost sounds like an April Fool's joke, doesn't it?! Were you cited for drunk driving or something? Not to be too nosy, but I never guessed that this would be common practice under normal "accident" circumstances. What in the world are taxes for? To be honest, I don't know what the law requires in Florida for this kind of situation. I did a bit of searching on the Florida DOT site, but couldn't find anything useful in relation to your predicament. Out of curiosity, how much are they trying to charge you for this damage to the guardrail? I think in your situation, this is what I would do... I'd call or write to the office issuing the damage bill and provide them with the name of the insurance company and your policy number and type of coverage that you had at the time. Let them bill the insurance company. I'd also mail a copy of the bill to Geico just for fun! They are notorious for trying (and succeeding) to get out of paying for covered damages, but I'd still send it to them. If you had the appropriate coverage (and if they paid out on the rest of the damage), they should still pay this one too. They probably won't, but who knows? Maybe the FDOT has more leverage than the lowly individual car owner. Also, in some states, you only have one year to file a claim. If the State of Florida is so far behind on their paperwork that they missed the deadline for filing, why should you be responsible for it? They should take the loss. Sorry I don't have any other bright ideas, but I'd love to hear any follow up about what you end up doing and how it turns out. Sure hope you weren't injured in the accident and that everything else has sorted itself out in relation to your car insurance and vehicle since then. Safe Driving! Angie |
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