There is NO Grace Period in Insurance
There is NO payment grace period in insurance. I don’t care what you’ve heard from your neighbor or your Dad or Steve your auto mechanic, when the due date for your bill comes and you don’t pay it, you DON’T have insurance anymore. This is called a Lapse In Coverage (Insurance Defined). Used in a sentence:“Whoops, I didn’t pay my bill on time and now my insurance has lapsed“
Scenario
You receive a bill in the mail for your Auto insurance. The payment due date is September 15th. September 16th comes and you still have not paid your bill. You get into an accident on September 16th… Too bad, so sorry, better luck next time. You don’t have insurance (This is called a lapse, remember).I don’t care if you have been with the Insurance company for 20 years or 20 days you only have insurance coverage for as long as you pay for it. So the day you stop paying for your insurance you no longer have Coverage.
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The Grace Period
“But JASON, what about the Grace Period? I pay my bill late all the time and its not a big deal”When you pay your bill late and continue to have coverage that is not a Grace Period. Your independent insurance agent has to contact the insurance carrier and get your policy Reinstated (Insurance Defined). That means for the three, four, five days that you hadn’t paid your bill you Did Not Insurance Coverage. When you eventually make the payment your independent agent has to convince the insurance carrier that they continue to offer you coverage.
Habitual late bill paying is a Big Deal because it can lead to a non-renewal letter from the insurance carrier. Every insurance application has a question approximately reading:
“Have you ever had coverage canceled, declined, or non-renewed in the last 5 years?”
You will have to answer this question YES and that means you’ll have to pay more annual premium dollars.
The Rub
I purposefully tried to not to sugar coat this Insurance Myth because I don’t want to you to get caught not having coverage. You may not think this is fair and you may not think its right, but it is the Truth. I don’t want you to get Non-Renewed and have to pay more premium. I don’t make the decision as to whether or not a company decides to Non-Renew you so all I can do is help you to be informed on how to not let that happen and fight for you if it does.So pay your bill on time. That way we don’t have to deal with this. If you are having trouble paying your bill contact your insurance agent and see if there is a different payment plan that might help you.
