A year ago yesterday I had a near head on collision with my 1992 Econoline 250. Other than bumps, no one was hurt, thankfully, Both cars were totalled.
About three weeks later we purchased a used 1993 Econoline 150. Took it to AAA to have them give the visual on it (which is apparently de riguer now) and have merrily paid our insurance for the new to us van ever since.
Until Mr. Ujest noticed last night on the Insurance renewal papers (they come every year at this time):
a: The VIN (vehichle ID numbers) didn’t match.
b) It was for a 1992 model.
c) It was for a 250 model
( 2001 was a banner year for insurance stuff for us. I had my accident. Mr. Ujest had his first accident, putting his car in the shop for over 7 weeks and clearing up the paper work on my little trip to the emergency room for my bump on my head took until this spring. We’ve been swimming deeper than usual in papers here folks. Oh, did I mention that the new to us van had a cardiac blip while we were on vacation in August with the alternator dying on us and the battery *melting * from carrying the load of the alternator on us. ( It was from running the AC on Full Artic for about 800 miles of hard driving.) and during January - August I had one brother die and another very very very ill. Oh, and Mr. Ujest had to lay off nearly 1/2 of his workforce the day before we left on vacation. Yippeee.So’s, we were slightly distracted last year.)
So, a quick call to the 800 line told us that, due to some screw up by them and oversight by us ,we have paid insurance on our old van that AAA bought us out for after it was crashed.
If I was in an accident or had a ticket during this last year, I would have been in deep deep poo poo until this quagmire would have been resolved. ( The lady at AAA assured me since it was the same vehicle type (more or less) and we had not missed a payment… blah blah blah…that we would have been covered. Now these are nice words, but knowing the insurance industry and how slowly they move on anything ( especially when they have to pay it out), it would have been years before anything would have been resolved. (personal experience is indictive of future headaches.)
So, Campers, the little lesson here today is: Always check your VIN numbers on your paper work.
If I have saved one person from a massive brain clot in the future, then my job is done here.
Poor kid! I was very upset for him (not at him). I think he learned several lessons from that experience.