Alright, I'm in a hurry so sorry in advance for the sloppy post. One of my tenants who is a young guy, a good kid, just bought his second car. He had it safetied, etested, and was waiting on approval from his insurance company for a policy certificate before changing the ownership over into his name. He called them a few days ago and was almost completed the process of switching his policy on to this car when their systems went down. They were unable to complete the switch and have been experiencing technical difficulties still for the last two days.

In the meantime, he's been driving the car to work and back, it's beyond walking distance. Last night he was pulled over on the way back from work, the police seized his plates and gave him a summons for driving without insurance and the plates not registered to the car he was driving (obviously they were still registered to his old car, which is parked in my drive).

Now, does he have a leg to stand on here or is he absolutely screwed re: the no insurance bit. I recommended him to a paralegal and he's on his way there now so we'll see what they say.... but I know we have a couple insurance agents on the board here, so I'm looking for qualified answers if they can be found. I feel horrible for the guy, he's really a straight shooter and this could be a huge blemish on an otherwise clean record.

Anyway, thanks for the space. Please post if you have info that could be useful.

Been there done that. No leg you either had it or you didn't. I got a retired cop to plee me down as they did want to charge me 5000. I got out of it with a 900 dollar fine. Rates almost doubled for me after that but I learned. Even waiting they will not be leaniant. At least the crown showed me be mercy the judge sided with us though.

Ya he's screwed. A lawyer will give you qualified professional advice (which is what he needs now), not an insurance agent.

I doubt that a judge is going to believe "he was trying to buy insurance but their system was down". They COULD have done something for him manually, or he COULD have gone to another insurance company. There was NO REASONABLE excuse there for driving without insurance...

yea he is fucked. I'm still dealing with Super gay ontario. I got nailed with no insurance because I was driving my friends car and Cst. Leblance didn't care that there was insurance because it wasn't in my name. Seized the car and told me to start walking. Im waiting to know what day I have to fly back to ontario to hear them say yes we will reduce or no we won't. I've been waiting 2 years on 200$ a month payments. it totals out to be 6284.36$ total fine.


But I have my friends insurance car. A letter from him saying I could drive it and Thats the only thing the cop gave me. Even tho I could have got assualting*verbally* a police officer.


So i got a bunch of proof saying there was insurance and i was allowed to drive the car, And I got 2 years of paying up to date well I wait for a spot in court.

Well, whether or not you personally believe it, I was actually there when he was talking to the insurance agent and heard the conversation. They did not offer to do anything for him manually. They called him back yesterday (2 days after the initial call) to let him know they were still working on resolving the techinical issue with their system.

edit: but I do agree with your contention that there was no reasonable excuse for him to be driving without insurance. He definintely had other options.

I am not saying that I personally don't believe it, I am saying a judge won't. Feel free to go along and tell the judge you were there and heard the conversation. I am pretty sure the judge won't believe you either.

Also, did he express to the insurance company how he desperately needed this immediately? They SHOULD have done something for him. If, on the other hand, he expressed that he wasn't going to be driving for a while anyways, then it is not surprising that they didn't offer to do something for him. Either way, I am fairly confident they didn't counsel him to drive without insurance until their system is "fixed"....Will they now give him any kind of letter saying he tried to buy insurance from them, and they were unable to sell it to him because their system was down? Even that would not get him totally off the hook, but probably get him some sympathy and a reduced fine.

It has NOTHING to do with my opinions...I am just fairly certain he is going to be screwed in court.

On another note, he needs to switch whatever company he is with. I'm with Statefarm and my agent is Grant from the boards. I get my insurance slip in an e-mail whenever I switch cars in about 30 seconds after I send him a copy of my ownership.

I've switched about 5 or 6 cars since being with Grant, and it has never taken more than 30 seconds for me to have a car switched, or insurance put on a new car.

I think he is screwed mainly because the plates were not registered to the car. Had he gone to the dmv and said that he had insurance and just gave his existing policy number i think you have time to report it to the insurance company. I did that with my car. I bought the car and had it transfered to my name then called the insurace after. He could have also gone to get a temp trip license. Police will not care that their systems were down, they will say that you should have waited until their issue was resolved. He knew the risk when he drove the car.

Figured I'd update this for fun...

So my tenant just finished up with the court business now, he had a paralegal who specializes in this kinda thing representing him. Long story short, he was prosecuted for driving without insurance, whereas the other charges he had (improper plates, license not updated, car not in his name, etc) were dropped. His fine was $3100 taxes and court costs in, he didn't get any points on his license which is a miracle, and he is on one year non-reporting probation (so basically he's screwed if he commits a similar offense within a year).

That is all.

Lucky SOB

Edit: still screwed though. Try getting insured in Ontario when you have something like that on your driving record.

He's insured for a reasonable rate. He got the insurance during the time that it took for this to be resolved so as of yet, there have been no reprecussions with his insurance.