Learn Why Your Policy Through a Florida Automobile Insurance Company Changed

Posted by prontoinsurance on October 21st, 2019

If you’re like many people, you don’t pay much attention to your car insurance policy until you need it. You pay the bill when it comes and hopes it covers whatever happens if anything happens. Then one day, you file a claim and are told your policy is different than what you remember signing up for. What happened? You may be shocked to realize that changes were made to your policy by the car insurance company in Florida itself, without your consent or knowledge. It is hard to believe this is even legal, but it is and it happens all too often with less than reputable companies. You sign a contract for a certain policy, and then months or even years later it changes. They have decided to charge you more, cover you less, or even both. Let’s look at a few reasons why this happens:

#1 Your policy is new. Shockingly, your auto insurance carrier can drop you for any reason up to 60 days after you sign up with them. Generally, after that time, there are only a few legal reasons that an auto insurer can cancel a policy or change it without your consent.

#2 You didn’t pay. Uh oh! You forgot to pay your monthly premium or didn’t pay on time. Now the auto insurance company can drop you or change your contract. This includes raising your rates if you want to stay on board with them. The company sees this as a breach of the contract on your end. You would have a hard time finding any business that will continue to provide a service or a product if you don’t pay for it, so be sure to keep up with your payments next time!

#3 There’s been changes to your driving privileges. Any car insurance company can and will cancel your coverage with them if your license is revoked or suspended. Typically, your license has been suspended or revoked because you have broken the law, either by getting a DUI, failing to pay tickets, or committing another type of driving-related violations. When this occurs, you are not legally allowed to be driving anyway. If you continue to drive without a license, you are seen a higher-than-average risk and the insurer does not want to take a gamble and end up covering a very expensive accident.

#4 The insurance company thinks you committed fraud. If you have misrepresented information about yourself or filed a fraudulent claim, then they are no longer obligated to do business with you and will nearly always choose not to. Examples of such fraud include padding repair bills on a claim, claiming prior damage was part of a new loss on a new claim, insuring your vehicle in someone else’s name, claiming you only use your vehicle for personal use when you actually use it for work-related driving, lying about the number of miles you drive in a day or in a year to get lower rates, and others. Of course, they could be wrong and you could be telling the truth!

It may be time to search for a car insurance company in Florida because you have been dropped from your current one, or they’ve hiked your rates way up. Take the time today to find a better company, one that will cover you with the policy you need for a price you can afford.