Last night I happened to recall that May 20 had passed – this date marks the anniversary of the first time I set foot in a NJ insurance company’s offices nineteen years ago.
Every May 20 and November 20 since, we get new “proof of insurance” documents that we are obligated by NJ law to carry within our vehicle.
As it stands, we have been driving in violation of that law for the past ten days. After digging through the sedimentary layers of junk mail, back through May to the long forgotten age of April, we are now in compliance. We have been covered constantly since 1988, however.
This seems so silly to me – I think it’s silly to have to carry a physical registration card, but I will concede that it may be necessary in rare situations. But why do we use such an antiquated system for the insurance card? It’s not a special unforgeable document – I could easily print one on my color printer if I wanted.
In searching on this, I found this post from our resident NJ cop, Loach, where he indicates the poor reliability of the card as an indicator of true coverage.
Why isn’t this all computerized? Sure, there might be a delay when a nightly batch job runs and brings over the updates from forty zillion insurance companies, but it would be far more accurate than these stupid cards.
When I dipped my toe into the insurance industry for six short months many years ago I worked on a system that sent off insurance claims daily to a central fraud-detection service that would compare notes across all companies and find suspicious stuff like the same SSN used for two different slip-and-fall accident claims in one day. This arrangement seemed to work quite smoothly, ten years ago.
Why are we in the stone age with proof of auto insurance?
It’s probably too costly to implement a system where the police can just radio in a request to see if a given vehicle is covered. The system would have to be able to collate information from all the car insurers in the United States; I’m not really sure that people forging their insurance cards is a big enough problem to justify implementing such a system in most jurisdictions. Any such system would have a system-wide expense level as well as a local expense in regard to implementation and use.
You are more likely to consent to a request to search of your vehicle if your papers are not in order. It’s something that they can use to intimidate you with.
Bullshit. This is GQ. Not only is that speculation, it is bad speculation. You don’t find your card you get charged for no insurance. We can not go looking for it. The only time I would look for a card is if you are in the back of an ambulance and the car is smashed up. If I find anything at that point other than your credentials then I would leave it up to the courts to decide what happens with it. Since I am acting in good faith I believe it would stand up in court.
As of now I have heard of no hints that NJ will have insurance information available to us over our computers. New York does have such a system. I can not comment on how accurate their system is. I’m not sure if I would be completely comfortable in relying on my insurance company to keep my information up to date. Initial cost is the big thing prohibiting it from happening. Remember the MVC just recently switched over to the new DLs which cost a great deal. Hopefully they will go to a New York type system in the future. I don’t know if New York still requires insurance cards to be carried. New Jersey requires you to carry your registration even though we can verify it by computer. Its a good idea anyway since the MVC has been known to screw up on occasion.
I believe that Massachusetts doesn’t require you to carry an insurance card. Insurance is verified when you register the vehicle. So the registration acts as proof of insurance. I would guess that if your insurance lapses in Massachusetts, the carrier notifies Motor Vehicles, who probably suspend your registration. So if you are pulled over, the cops can run your registration and find out that it’s been suspended for lack of insurance.
One advantage to carrying an insurance card is if you get in an accident, you can give the other driver your insurance information without a lot of trouble. Also, requiring people to carry proof of insurance prevents them from arguing that they thought they had insurance when in fact they didn’t.
If you are in an accident, the guy you hit probably don’t have one of those nifty terminals in his car to call up your insurance info. Hence the need for a card.
The fraud detection system we worked with in the situation I mentioned in the OP gathered claims from us (an insurance middleman supporting tens of thousands of insurers) as well as thousands of other companies. It is not a big deal.
And, apparently some states do it, as others have alluded.
But those cards are apparently little better than the person saying who their insurer is. And, if the person has DL and Reg, shouldn’t your insurance company be able to do everything they need with just that information?
I skipped that intentionally. Unfortunately, our license is the de-facto identification card hereabouts, so we need it.
A major difference between licence/reg and insurance docs is that the former are produced by state authorities, and are much more standardized and likely harder to forge. They must be much more reliable than those flimsy insurance cards.
I’m one of the last folks with a non-picture NJ license (for one more year). Kind of silly for me to have to carry my passport when I travel in the US as proof of identity.
Quick hijack question for Loach (or anyone) - say my insurance card says “good until April 2007” and now it’s May. I just plum forgot to put my new card in the car (or the matching one in my wallet). I am actually very much insured, just the concrete proof of it is sitting in my “things to put in the car” pile at home. Do I still get a ticket for no insurance? Is it a judgement call by the cop?
When I’ve not been able to find my insurance “card” the officer found it in the computer. This was years ago as I’ve not been pulled over in ages [knocks on wood]. For annual registration, the state already knows I’m in good standing, and I just register online. I don’t know who the poor suckers are who don’t have PIN’s on their renewel certificate, but that’s what’s needed to renew online.
Also because Michigan’s a no-fault state, we don’t even have to bother exchanging insurance information.
I can’t answer solidly, but I will answer with an anecdote - yes, I have had this happen to me, in NY, which is one of the strictest states around for driving laws, and the cop just said “Make sure you have it next time” and “If I pull you over again without it, I’ll give you a ticket then.”
Right this happened twice to me. I got a ticket BOTH times for not having proof of insurance. The first time I fought it in court and got the ticket dismissed by showing proof that I was insured at the time (I had to pay court costs though).
The second time the judge refused to drop the ticket and I had to pay the ticket and the court costs.
The laws in New Jersey are very strict about insurance. No insurance, your car gets towed. We used to be able to write you a ticket for not having your card with you and make it court appearance required. If you didn’t bring in proof you got the ticket for no insurance on the spot. (The statute of limitations is 6 months for insurance, 30 days for other motor vehicle violations) We can no longer do that. The courts have ruled that we have no leeway in the matter. If we don’t get proof of insurance within 48 hours of writing you the ticket for not possesing it then we have to track you down and tow your car or we get in trouble. Nobody is going to do that. You will get the ticket for no insurance and your car gets towed. Some are going to be afraid that you will go and run into a van full of nuns if they let you go and their career will go in the crapper. I like to live on the edge and will let it go if I think you do have insurance. If the card is too far out of date you are out of luck. Sometimes we can verify by phone if the policy is valid. Geico is about the only one we can rely on to give that information all the time. Most of the others make it difficult or impossible to talk to a human especially at night. We are under no obligation to call. The law says no card, towed car.
Sorry if you took offense to that, and I did not mean to imply that an officer would use it as an excuse to go looking for it in the car. But I live near Detroit and often times the police have been known to use intimidation techniques to brow beat a suspect into consenting to seach. Not having your paperwork in order is one of those things that they can try to use against you late at night on the side of the road.
In New Jersey it is state law that you need an articulable suspicion before you even ask for a consent search. That is a much higher standard than the US Supreme Court requires.
I have been a good boy and maintained unbroken coverage for my 19 years here, and twice a year I run the risk of a disproportionately expensive ticket if I forget to put the slip of paper in the car, even though the bill is paid.
I’d rather see the folks that don’t have insurance or have lapses in coverage caught and charged accordingly.
Hoping this isn’t too far off the subject, but why at this point would you be responsible for looking for proof of insurance? Not meaning anything personally (I believe you’re a good cop) and not knowing the relevant case law in NJ or federally, I would have to wonder if “I was looking for his insurance card while he was being trucked off to the hospital” as a pretext to an otherwise non-consensual search.
