Man Fined for No Insurance Despite Pink Card and Monthly Payments

[karrie]

It's a valuable lesson that one Beaumont man learned the hard way.
"Even though you buy insurance, you get a pink card, you pay the monthly premiums, you may not be insured," said Fred Davis, 54.
Davis' insurance debacle began on Christmas Eve, when his son, Steven, 19, was pulled over in Edmonton.
Steven gave the officer a pink card naming Trafalgar Insurance but was slapped with a $4,000 fine for driving without insurance when it was found the company had no record of him or his car.
"I know he's got insurance. I bought it. I handed the kid the pink card," said a frustrated Davis, who spent the next few days trying in vain to get Steven's car out of impound and trying to figure out why the insurance company he'd been paying monthly premiums to for the past four years had no record of his business.

full article....


How does one go about checking for something like this? Totally bizarre.

 

[Unforgiven]

Someone made an error in the paper work and the motorist and father have been told they will be compensated for their out of pocket expenses along with the fine being dropped.

I don't think there is a way to make sure that no one makes a clerical error until it comes up. Then they are going to be held responsible for it, rather than you so it's not as big a worry as it seems from the bit you posted here.

 

[karrie]

An impounded vehicle and five days to sort it out, for some people would mean they lose their job. They're lucky it worked out so well (the insurance company that is).

 

[Tonington]

How about paying back all the money he paid into non-existant coverage? You pay for a service, if the company is putting that in their accounting ledgers without actually providing a service, then he ought to get that money back.

 

[karrie]

The insurance company says he'd have been covered if there was an accident, that it was just a failure of the paperwork to jive, but boy... five days to prove insurance just for a fine, I can only imagine the foot dragging if they were having to shell out for an accident (yeah, go ahead, call me jaded)

 

[Unforgiven]

An impounded vehicle and five days to sort it out, for some people would mean they lose their job. They're lucky it worked out so well (the insurance company that is).

First thing is he's in Edmonton. If he lost his job, then I suspect with the boom going on
there he could either get a new job right away or be compensated for his losses.

from the article:

It seems that there was some sort of disconnect between Davis's insurance broker, Grey Power, and Trafalgar, said Smola.
But despite the confusion and the fine - which has since been dropped - Smola said the Davis family's three cars were never uninsured. Smola personally called Davis to apologize and assured him that his out-of-pocket expenses will be covered by the company.

So his impound charges, towing charges and any money he is out will be covered by the company. As well they are going to look into how things got fouled up in the first place and set that straight so it doesn't happen again.

I don't know what more the company would be expected to do.

 

[karrie]

They have indeed done a lot. Like I said, what can one do to check for this? If the systems aren't talking, man, that's a pretty sneaky problem.

 

[Tonington]

Perhaps like an email you get when you sign up for anything on the web. Click on link to confirm. When you get the papers, call the insurer, not the broker you bought it from to confirm your coverage. Shouldn't have to, but I'll bet it's worth it when you consider the time this man had to expend to sort the matter out.

 

[Lester]

reputable companies usually deal with things like this quickly so as to not create a PR nightmare for themselves.

 

[karrie]

That's a good way to go about it Tonington.