Can I get away with registering and insuring a motor vehicle at an address to which I do have a tenuous connection, but at which I do not actually live, or keep said motor vehicle, in order to take advantage of the substantially cheaper insurance rates offered at that address?
Specifically, my father and mother reside in Manhattan, in New York City, as do I (although not with them). They own a vacation house on the East End of Long Island, about 100 miles from the city, at which I spend a fair amount of time in the summer. My mother owns a car (my father does not drive). Her driver’s license bears the Long Island address, as does the registration of the car. She insures it at that address.
She told me that she does this because of the difference in price in insurance. I looked up the rate for insuring my vehicle (a motorcycle, but the principle is the same) at the vacation house address, and was astounded at how much cheaper it would be. It’s a lot of money.
So, if I change my driver’s license to that address, change my registration to that address, and insure the bike that way, can I get in any trouble? Can the insurer deny me coverage if anything happens? Is there any down side?
IANA insurance guy or lawyer, but my gut feeling is it’s deceptive and could get ugly. Do you spend greater than 50% of your time at the LI location? Is that the address you use for filing federal, state, and local income taxes? Do you vote in that local polling precinct? Do you work or go to school in closer proximity to the LI address than in NYC proper? If the answer to all of the above is no, then I wouldn’t go there.
If memory serves, a number of people in the metro Philly area got in a similar pot of shite some years ago, as many of them own shore properties in Jersey, and were registering cars to their vacation addresses to save $. They got caught.
Well I AM an insurance guy, and YES you can “get away” with it. But that very term implies that you know it’s the wrong thing to do.
An insurance application will ask you for the address at which the vehicle is garaged for the majority of the time. Thus, if you spend most of your time at the vacation house but only a few months out of the year at your place in NYC, you’re being honest. But lying on an insurance application (and policy address *changes *are technically applications because they have to be run through the underwriting department) is sufficient cause for denying a claim. Which is no fun for anyone involved.
Plus you’re screwing other policyholders with the same company by not ponying up according to your exposure…didn’t I just do this post?