Wells Fargo claims they attempted to verify insurance coverage on my vehicle, and tried contacting me 5 weeks ago. I have no record of that alleged correspondence, and have spoken to customer service reps at least twice since then without any mention of it. I got a letter today explaining that the dealer has exercised a right to purchase insurance on my behalf since they couldn’t verify it with me. They added 200 dollars a month on to my loan, and the letter they sent gives the specifics of the coverage provided for that money.
The problem is I do have insurance, and have held it consistently during the entire time I owned the vehicle. I’m now double covered, and paying money for insurance I don’t want or need. What recourse do I have? The unwanted insurance is through a third party insurance co, and about twice as expensive as my insurance. They purchased the insurance for a term of 12 months.
Have you spoken to them since you got the letter? I assume not since this is the weekend (and I assume you meant to say that you got the letter yesterday, since this is Sunday.)
If you call them and give them proof of insurance, they may cancel the other insurance.
If they refuse, then raise hell and get a lawyer if necessary.
Edited to add: When I purchased a car recently I had to show proof of insurance right at the beginning before anything was signed and before I took possession. It’s always worked that way in the past also.
I got the letter yesterday, but opened it today. Sorry for the confusion.
I did indeed show proof of insurance to the dealer when I purchased the vehicle. My insurance info has not changed since then, either. The only thing I can imagine went wrong was that the dealer didn’t communicate the insurance info to Wells Fargo, or Wells Fargo got my account mixed up with someone else, especially considering they claimed they attempted correspondence with me that never actually happened.
This has happened to me before, both with work and personal; my home and auto. It seems to me that any changes in your account throughout the year can and will screw things up.
All I’ve ever had to do is call the lender and then provide the proof of insurance. It shouldn’t be a big deal at all.
They already charged me for one month worth of the coverage, though. It was on my bill when I logged in and paid. They already have 200 dollars from me toward this insurance policy, which is why I’m pissed.
Then they just billed you for it. Just don’t pay the $200 you don’t really owe. Then call and work it out with them on Monday like everyone suggested. You’d be crazy to actually pay it just because they billed for it.
Yes, one should hope you can get this all un-done rather easily with just a few phone calls, or possibly you might have to show up in person at a WF office and show some paper. I had a different vehicle insurance F-U once, that was fairly quickly resolved. I just went to the insurance agent’s office, and let HIM make all the hassle phone calls, and it got fixed.
Bought car, got insurance. A week later, got letter that insurance was cancelled because they found I didn’t have a driver’s license. Went to agent, license in hand to show him, and let HIM deal with the insurance company about it. They got if taken care of.
ETA: My impression is, you should be able to get this un-done as long as you didn’t have any actual claims against the second insurance company since WF bought the policy for you. I’ve had that kind of issue a few times with medical insurance.
There’s probably not any legal recourse because it’s probably in the small print that the dealer has the right to purchase insurance on your behalf if you don’t provide proof. But the others are correct that the $200 will probably be cheerfully refunded once you provide sufficient proof that you, indeed, had coverage during the month they charged you.
A few weeks ago, I got a notice from the BMV that they were going to suspend my husband’s driver’s license, because during a random audit months earlier, they sent us a letter demanding proof of insurance and we failed to comply. I never opened such a letter, but realize that I might have simply thrown it away without opening it. (I nearly threw the 2nd notice away because at first glance, the sender was BMW. My husband used to own a BMW and we still get occasional junk mail for it.) Luckily, I did open the 2nd notice because they’d have suspended his license on December 1st. To make matters worse, even though we had coverage the entire time, we’d have had to pay a $75 reinstatement fee. (If we didn’t have coverage, the fee was $150.)
So, while I was a tad annoyed that they didn’t make their letter more conspicuous (e.g. printing “AUDIT – ACTION REQUIRED” on the outside, I was actually impressed that the State of Ohio is actually being more progressive on weeding out uninsured drivers.
Every car insurance company I’ve dealt with has always refunded money when coverage is canceled back to the date when new coverage started. Since you were covered the whole time, all the money should be refunded.
If there is an issue, a letter of complaint to the state insurance secretary (CCed to the insurance company) does wonders in many cases.
How can this be? I didn’t have any claims last month. Can I retroactively cancel my car insurance and get my premiums back, and set the insurance start date to today?