The Call People Forget to Make

If there is a loan or a lease on your car, there is a third party watching your insurance. They are not being nosy — they own an interest in the vehicle and their contract with you requires it to be insured. When their records show no coverage, they act, and what they do is expensive.

Force-placed insurance, and why you want to avoid it

If a lender cannot verify coverage, it can buy a policy on the vehicle and bill you for it. That policy protects the lender's interest, not yours, and it is generally far more expensive than coverage you would have arranged. It also arrives without warning on a statement.

The whole of the prevention is one step: make sure your new carrier's evidence reaches your lender.

What the lender needs

• The new carrier's name and policy number.
• The effective date.
• Confirmation they are listed as lienholder or loss payee on the new policy — spelled and addressed exactly as they require.
• Evidence of physical damage coverage, since that is normally what the loan agreement requires.

How to get it right first time

1. Find the lender's exact name and mailing address for insurance notices. It is usually printed on your loan statement, and it is often not the same address you send payments to.
2. Give it to your new agent at the point of binding, not afterwards.
3. Ask for evidence of insurance to be sent to the lender directly and a copy to you.
4. Check the new declarations page names the lender correctly.
5. A week later, confirm with the lender that they received it.

Why the exact name matters

Lenders often assign or service loans under names that differ from the brand on your app. Evidence sent to the wrong entity is evidence not received, and the force-placement process does not know the difference. Copy the name character for character from the statement.

The same applies when you simply change carriers mid-term

It is not only a purchase-time task. Any time the policy or the carrier changes, the lender needs fresh evidence. If you have already received a letter warning about force-placed coverage, treat it as urgent — those letters have deadlines and reversing a force-placed charge is much harder than preventing one.

Give us the lender details up front and we'll send them the evidence the same day we bind.