Replace my 3-year-old table for me!

[Geek King]

in my state part of my insurance is to cover damage for uninsured/underinsured people so we get to pay extra for those who don;t have insurance

However, people without insurance can be nailed in a civil suit. Loss of property, garnished wages, the works. Only the truly poor are safe, and only because they're uncollectable. You can still treat the judgement against them as a normal debt, and come after them if their fortune changes before the state-set time limit is up (5-7 years, in most states. Each is different). Hell, I knew one vicim of an unisured motorist who even filed for (and got) the totaled car that hit him to sell for scrap. Basically, you only have to leave them a roof over their head and enough money for basic living expenses until the judgement is paid off.

Moral: Keep your insurance at least to state minimums, kids.

[Betweenshades]

I will never EVER stop being amazed at people's entitlement issues. Your stuff was in a nasty storm. All you lost was a table? REPLACE IT. *stabbity*

[dutifulTM]

That reminds me of something I heard about some woman going to costco (or was it sam's club?) and replacing a VERY old table she bought there, because apparently they have no "have to return item by X date for refund/replacement" clause?

However, in the OP's case, that woman was out of luck.

[Frantic Freddie]

The Martin Guitar Company has a "we'll fix it no matter what" policy.Years ago I read a story about how a customer sent them a guitar & when they opened the box there was a perfect line of bullet holes across the guitar.

They just fixed it & sent it back,no questions asked

[dalesys]

...there was a perfect line of bullet holes across the guitar.

The moral:


Don't take a guitar to a fiddlin' contest in Old Chicago. Violins will break out.

[PepperElf]

claiming we won't stand behind our product, and asking where she should go next.

yeah cos apparently you have the ability to shit out new tables that are discontinued.
and a slice of pie.

[Geek King]

The moral:


Don't take a guitar to a fiddlin' contest in Old Chicago. Violins will break out.

BOOOO!

[EricKei]

Then, if you stop payments or whatever, the insurance company is required by law to inform the DMV when they'll be stopping the coverage, and the DMV will in turn inform your friendly neigborhood police department, who will then send someone out to pick up the plates from your car.

Is there nothing similar in the US?

I guess they keep track of it through some sort of system. They knew about our insurance expiring before we did. They said we were lucky my husband did not get pulled over or it would have been an even bigger fine and his license could have gotten suspended even longer.

Pageantmama sort of answered the question for me -- Here, the DMV most certainly WILL know that your insurance is bad before you do; however, cops going around to pull tags (plates) is very, very, very low on the priority list. About the only way this will happen would be if you owe them a LOT of money (several thousand US dollars) due to compounded fees, or if the car itself has been abandoned and someone has complained about it or something like that. E.g. -- my father's car sat in the faaar, far back end of my driveway for something like three years after he passed away, with no tag (you're supposed to turn it in if you don't have insurance; I took it off but I'm not sure if I turned it in, but it was never driven after his death anyway). The cops finally considered it abandoned and towed it away after THREE YEARS of being, well, in one place where it was not in anybody's way. o_O

The State passes laws about insurance, but often does not enforce them properly. I'm going to stop right there for fear of going into Fratching territory.

Canarr - When I was learning (ein Bisschien) German back in high school, my teacher told us that, at the time, German driver's licenses were quite difficult to get, often involving several months of training and over 1500 DM (at the timel I imagine the modern equivalent would be well over 2000 Euro) worth of costs and fees. Also, if you get your license revoked, it's next to impossible to get it back; naturally, driving without one is considered *extremely* bad. Is this accurate, and, if so, is it still the case? Here, sadly, it's the opposite: Licenses are cheap, maybe $15-25 where I live, and driver education is not even mandatory -- it just gets you a small discount on your insurance (if you have that)...

Then again, I wasn't kidding about high insurance costs here. I have a 12-year clean driving record, I've been 29 for...a few years now...I don't drink, I don't smoke, I drive an 11-year old car...and I pay about $1050 a year for State Minimum coverage plus Home Renter's Insurance (The car is about 910 of that). That puts me definitively at the LOW end of our cost spectrum, and it's not easy to stay there, either. A single minor violation or parking ticket could easily bump it up by 100 a year or more. Teenagers START at around $1500-1600 a year at the very least.

[protege]

However, people without insurance can be nailed in a civil suit. Loss of property, garnished wages, the works. Only the truly poor are safe, and only because they're uncollectable. You can still treat the judgement against them as a normal debt, and come after them if their fortune changes before the state-set time limit is up (5-7 years, in most states. Each is different).

My grandmother was hit by an under-insured driver some years ago. Her car was destroyed, and she (along with my cousin) had to be flown to the hospital via helicopter Since the guy who caused the accident didn't have enough coverage on his "farm truck," we bankrupted the son of a bitch. Between my grandmother's lawyer, and my cousin's lawyer...the guy lost everything. His house, land, vehicles, and everything else...down to his toothbrush...was eventually seized to pay her medical bills. Sure, she had insurance, but physical therapy and multiple operations don't come cheap.

Some of you might also remember that my dad (who was already dealing with possible cancer and cardiac issues ) was hit by an uninsured driver last summer. This dipshit ran a stop sign, and drove head-on into Dad's car His insurance took care of most of it, but we're still going after the asshole.

[Ironclad Alibi]

My mother-in-law's car, when she went into assisted living, was sold by a neice, who delayed returning the tags to the Maryland DMV. We allowed her car insurance to lapse unaware that the tags were still active. The Maryland DMV sent us a bill* for the uninsured motorist fee, which they charge people who don't have car insurance on their cars. That's how Maryland deals with uninsured cars. I believe Virginia is the same way, since they also have an uninsured motorist fee.

* The bill was withdrawn after the situation was explained to them.

[Nayeli_Sabia]

Our insurance lapsed without us knowing it. We moved halfway across the country, and husband got insurance fixed to the new area.... except the paperwork wasn't handled properly(SECOND time we had this issue with this company). Apparently, they sent notices when the next payment was due... to our old address. I found out we where uninsured when someone broke into our car. Called the Insurance company to find out... we'd not been insured in almost a year.

To make life even more interesting... this is my husband's car, 100%. The day before, my husband had just left for 3 months overseas(Military). The old insurance wouldn't let me re-up since I wasn't the car owner. Luckily, my mom knew a local agent, and I got the car re-insured the day. I'm just glad nothing bad happened. We're honest, upstanding people, we've not missed a payment since, and have not had an issue with our new company. I was not pleased with this situation, and have stayed more aware of what's going on since then. I don't ever, EVER want to be caught in that type of situation again.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

I hear quite often, Canarr, that people let their insurance lapse, and only becomes an issue when they get into an accident.
Myself, I have the "if I hit someone, the other person is covered car and body if it's my fault" insurance. The minimum required. So, if I bork my bumper myself, it's out of my pocket. Just the way it probably should be...
But yeah. What you described would be considered 'involved' in the U.S.-- which means someplace like New York state would have it! (I love you NY...)
EDIT: yeah... I concur w/ Geek King: you get your ass nailed in Civil Suits. To. The. Wall. :shudder:
EDITEDIT: EricKei lives in one of the top ten, if not the worst, state for driving and insurance. Look the lists up. Washington is also up there. I got state mandated minimum, and I pay less than 300 a year for mine. No claims-- but one accident, and ... three tickets? Go MyState?


EDIT of DOOM: , Ironclad Alibi... My paternal grandmother, Oma, lived in mid-state New York. She moved to live with us and we got the stuff squared away with the car that her friends had to drive over, since she was medically incapable of doing so. (They were fun to meet and talk with!) Anyway. New York State decided that we hadn't given them the ... something, I think it was the tags or the plates or something stupid-- and told Oma that they'd take away her license to drive and the green tag on the car that was somehow different than the license plate either way it was needed for the car operation, I think it was like a verification of VIN and serial numbers and yes you can drive this legally on the road.
Dad had to take pictures of the spot where the green tag had been, and was now very destroyed and dare them to take away an already expired driver's license.

[Canarr]

Canarr - When I was learning (ein Bisschien) German back in high school, my teacher told us that, at the time, German driver's licenses were quite difficult to get, often involving several months of training and over 1500 DM (at the timel I imagine the modern equivalent would be well over 2000 Euro) worth of costs and fees. Also, if you get your license revoked, it's next to impossible to get it back; naturally, driving without one is considered *extremely* bad. Is this accurate, and, if so, is it still the case? Here, sadly, it's the opposite: Licenses are cheap, maybe $15-25 where I live, and driver education is not even mandatory -- it just gets you a small discount on your insurance (if you have that)...

It's still the case. You pay 1.500 Euro easily (about 2.200 US$) by the time you've got your license. There's a mandatory number of driver's education classes, plus a mandatory minimum number of hours spent driving (in actual traffic). It's also regulated how many of these driving hours must be spent on highways (4 hours), on overland routes (5 hours), and at night (3 hours), though you can expect to have at least another 6-10 hours of driving in other settings (city, mostly) before you're through with your mandatory hours. Then, there's a theoretical test and a practical test (which, again, consists of driving in actual traffic).

As to getting the license back after losing it, that depends. There's a few instances of temporary loss of license (running a red light costs you a month without license on a first offense; speeding can lose you the license for one to three months, depending on the severity of the offense). If you lose your license temporarily, you can even choose the time (within the span of 12 months) in which you'll give it up. However, lose it a second time, or throw drunk driving into the mix, you're quickly looking at 6 - 12 months' worth of driving prohibition, and in those cases, they'll revoke your license and you'll have to prove your driving ability again (after a minimum prohibition period during which no new license may be issued to you).

Do that more than once, and you'll be doing extra mandatory testing to verify whether or not you're suitable to operate a vehicle.

[EricKei]

Canarr - Thanks for the explanation ^_^ We have many situations and/or drivers in the US who would benefit greatly from a system like that, but I'm not going to talk about any of them here, as that would definitely be Fratching territory. I would love to see such a system come into affect here -- When a license costs you that much time and money to get in the first place, you tend to place more value on it, methinks.

I imagine that the amount of training involved is what allows Germany to have something like the Autobahn still in existence...Yes, people go dangerously fast on there, but the vast majority of them are really, really good at it. Here in America, the people who routinely go far faster than everybody else are typically the worst, most dangerous, aggressive, and poorly-trained drivers among us.

[Canarr]

My pleasure. And, yes, you might think so - but unfortunately, the possibility of punitive consequences has never stopped a moron, and we have plenty of those over here, too. Reckless driving, drunk driving... whereever you go, there it is