Insuring Car Outside NY
We’re buying a weekend home in CT, and it just occurred to us that we could now change our car registration, legally and legitimately, to CT and thus pay lower insurance rates. Any reason not to do this? Given that Brooklyn is our primary home and we’ll be spending more of our time here, is…
We’re buying a weekend home in CT, and it just occurred to us that we could now change our car registration, legally and legitimately, to CT and thus pay lower insurance rates. Any reason not to do this? Given that Brooklyn is our primary home and we’ll be spending more of our time here, is there any advantage to keeping our NY registration?
Thanks for any insights!
Petebklyn — It’s not legal if your insurance company won’t cover you. You must maintain insurance on your vehicle. If you provide a fraudulent address (i.e., not your primary garage) to your insurance company, they have no obligation to honor any claim you make. This boils down to driving without insurance.
Brownstonerlogin — I wasn’t “measured” or “polite” because what you were asking was — Can I get away with saving some cash even though I clearly know it’s unethical and doesn’t sound particularly legal?
If I asked, “I want to send my kid to this fancy school and they have a scholarship program providing free tuition for low income families. I earn $1.6 million a year, but obviously I can’t let the school know this. Do you have any suggestions on how to hide my earnings?”
Would you reply to that in a “measured” and “polite” way?
@ Ringo, you would be “storing” your vehicle on Brooklyn streets until you get in it and drive upstate, so ethically speaking you should be paying Brooklyn rates. But if you keep your vehicle entirely upstate for 4 months, I would change the policy every winter to take advantage of the lower rate.
Thank you MaconStreetMan, be_rude, and those others who gave clear, measured, and polite responses. On the basis of *your* helpful input, I will politely decline my broker’s suggestion to change our policy address. 🙂
people do it all the time. look at all the North Carolina and Georgia plates parked in the ‘hood.
I really don’t think registration fees is a factor- probably just pays for itself. Not really a revenue raiser.
And I don’t think ‘illegal’…it is an issue between the insurer and the car owner. They base the rates on likelihood of claims. So matter of where drive the most.
The ethical thing is for the insurer to judge. Of course they will pick the one where they make the better profit.
For those so angry about it – consider that it is possible that those that insure elsewhere are keeping your NYC rates down….because those people, when they do make a claim after having accident here, are driving the rates up in area where the car is insured.
the funny thing is that if most of you naysayers actually had the option to register your vehicle at a secondary address, you would probably consider it just like OP!
I’m wondering what is the legal thing to do, if anyone knows.
If “insurance companies only care where you claim to park” — then I need to insure upstate since I park the car up there more than half the time (every weekend and all winter). If it’s where my primary residence is, that’s brooklyn. I want to do the legal thing. I insure here but I if I hit a schoolbus up there, can my insurance co. deny the claim and say that I should have insured up there since I put 95% of my miles on the car up there and park up there?
I’ve been meaning to ask my insurance guy and I will since you guys are going nuts about it!
Most of the traffic congestion is from people outside the city coming in instead of using mass transit.
Yeah, Brownstonerlogin, was just going to write the same thing MaconStreet just said. I don’t see how any fair reading of this thread (or the law, or common sense…) could leave the impression there is a split on whether this is legal. It’s clearly not.
As Macon said, the only split is on whether it is ethical or worth the risk. That’s entirely up to you…