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[Stolen Car] and No Insurance
Hamurabi
MiamiRegistered User regular
MiamiRegistered User regular
So yeah, long story short: for a series of reasons that I thought were perfectly logical before yesterday, I didn't have insurance on the 2010 Corolla I was still making payments on (I know, I know...). Yesterday it was nabbed from my university parking lot. Filed a stolen vehicle report, waiting 2-3 days before I can go pick up the full police report. Haven't had a chance yet to go to the dealership and explain the situation. I presume I'm completely fucked and am still liable for paying the remaining balance on the car, and that there might be some penalty for violating the financing contract and driving without full-coverage insurance.
Is there anything missing in this assessment of the present level of fucked I am?
Is there anything missing in this assessment of the present level of fucked I am?
Hamurabi on
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That being said, I hope they find your car.
You may be able to tug some strings with the bank (and I think some states require it) that if your car is stolen or totaled that you want to stop paying on your loan. Mostly because you no longer are in possession of the collateral. You could check into it with them. Let them know your car was stolen and ask what your options are. Best case, your loan goes away. Worst case, you're on the hook.
Doesn't work that way. I think SOME banks will essentially have a system for this where you get another car, and then basically combine the old payments you still owe plus the new ones, with a slightly, slightly more lenient payment than you should have. Alternatively, you file for bankruptcy.
Wikipedia research indicates that some states, including New York, require that every lender include GAP insurance as part of the lease payment. So if OP just happens to be lucky enough to be in one of those states, he may have GAP insurance without knowing it.
Can you link? I knew some states had to offer it, but I didn't know some states outright made dealers include it. Also is it only for leased vehicles? I can't imagine the OP would be able to lease a vehicle without insurance.
Life lesson: learnt. -_-
Not to harp, but out of curiosity: what were you thinking? Like, why did you think you didn't need insurance?
BUT as of now, it is what it is and you have my condolences. And, in a way, you are in a position of power over the bank. You owe them a great deal of money and have virtually no incentive whatsoever to pay them back, at all. They will probably do what they can to accommodate you, if it means you continuing to make payments. If they send it to collections, they will get pennies on the dollar. Likewise, if they send it to collections, you can probably negotiate a better rate. Really, I wouldn't counsel a planned default or bankruptcy though, although you can THREATEN to default or file bankruptcy. 10k is a lot of money, but the hit your credit would take is worth far more over the 7 years it would take for it to drop off. Also, many car loans have a very very low teaser interest rate. Hopefully yours is among them.
I'm sorry but this is fucking awful advice. 10k isn't shit to the bank in the grand scheme of things, but it sure is enough to get them to get a judgement against the OP should he default. Banks don't fuck around with collections as often as they just send a lawyer to take 20 different guys to court in an afternoon.
In addition to garnishing his wages, his credit'll be completely fucked for until about 2020.
Sorry Ham, it's a crap situation, but don't for a second think you have an ounce of "leverage" here
Basically, I was paying $350/mo (the actual payments on the car are $310/mo, btw) for something that I wasn't necessarily ever going to use. I'm a obsessively safe driver, and while there's always the chance someone will hit me (or that my car will get stolen), it seemed statistically unlikely enough that I thought just giving someone $2,100 over six months (for basically nothing) wasn't worth it.
Obviously now I know all the rationalization in the world doesn't help me in a worst-case scenario.
Someone in the D&D chat thread asked why the premiums were so high, and it was basically because my dad has an awful driving record, and was my co-signor on the loan, so he has to be on the insurance.
Aside form the abysmally high rates I was getting (from basically all the major insurers), I also cut my work schedule to just weekends to cope with the inordinately high workload I had in school this semester. Basically from January to April, I made ~$500/mo, which was enough to cover my car payments and pretty much nothing else.
Someone who drives 5 miles a day will most likely pass 40-50 other drivers per day. Guess what? Every one of those other drivers think that they'll never use their insurance either, because they're all gumdrop princesses on lollypop lane, and they're all the best drivers in the whole world, and nothing bad ever happens to good people, right?
Tuck this one away for the future - before you go buy a new car, PRICE OUT THE INSURANCE. If all the major insurance companies are quoting you a rate of $350.00 / month, that's an indicator that you really shouldn't buy that car.
In some states, yes.
No shit. The highest I ever paid was $150 through Liberty Mutual, though they wanted to bump that to around $300 a month when I added my wife on and a second car. That was when we switched and have been paying less than $100 a month for the two of us.
Of course this partially depends on where you are driving and your record (though that sounds clean). Did you shop around for insurance at all?
Err, I'm sorry If I wasn't clear. I said I would NOT advise a default or bankruptcy. The leverage he has is only in negotiating a potentially better position without actually defaulting or declaring bankruptcy, and it isn't much, but it does exist (although not so much if you consider his cosignor). (warning: IANAL) Any judgement levied against you will be for approximately $crap unless you're earning like 3x minimum wage, fulltime, and from the sound of things that isn't remotely the case. The bank knows this and would very much like you to keep making payments. Explaining your situation and the fact that bankruptcy is essentially your only option might get you some traction. Probably not, but, depending on who owns your loan and their specific policies, it could.
More importantly, though, now that we know that your dad is a consignor, it becomes paramount that you involve him in this process, because he is DIRECTLY on the hook for the entire amount at this point, and he, if he had the credit to pull this off where you didn't, is apparently at a point in his life where this thing could harm him much more than you. His involvement probably also means that the bank won't even talk to you because they have 2 wages to garnish in the event of a default, and, although from what I understand, bankruptcy law is far from simple, you declaring bankruptcy will probably just leave him holding the ball. Seriously, you had better tell him about this immediately if you haven't already. That will be a fun conversation.
(Also, now you understand the problem with free riders in an insurance system like health, where you WOULD have your expenses paid for in an emergency.)
They were charging me $120/mo. That made sense when I worked 5 days a week and every paycheck was ~$500-600; not so much when every bi-weekly check is ~$250 before the health insurance premium.
I did. The range was basically $300-350, but my dad really liked Mercury for whatever reason. He made the initial lump-sum payment, so I didn't argue.
iirc, he was the one who actually bought the car, and I was the co-signor (because he had better credit than me). Because both our names are on the title of the car, we both have to be on any insurance plan for the car, according to all the insurance people I went to.
Then go online and get quotes instead. If you were able to get away with no insurance until now, surely just insuring yourself would've been preferable to that.
For clarification, the one policy I had (the Mercury one) was obtained online, through some insurance comparison website.
The people I went to (and the guy I spoke to over the phone to complete the process when I bought online) all said my dad had to be on the policy because his name was attached to the car.
My dad is unemployed atm, and doesn't have insurance on his own car either, though I think he's in the process of getting it after what happened with me.
I just, erm, didn't.
They absolutely do, but if you let it lapse after the fact, they won't know until it's too late.