My prius was stolen.

Sorry but your own fault. You have insurance for these reasons. You choose to pay it manually, you didn't, a bad happened, and now you want to be covered in retrospect? I can't even begin to remember how many times I have seen court cases where one of them was "on there way to pay their insurance bill" at the time of the accident or whatever other excuse. You didn't pay, you're not covered. You still owe money to the bank for the car too. Don't think that because you no longer have the car the bank will take a sob story as payment. You have to pay the full amount you borrowed.

As to how it was stolen, a thief with a flatbed can be in and out within a minute or two, no keys required and can steal a hybrid, and EV, a pickup, 4wd, 2wd, or 18wheeler.

Since your mother "forgot" to pay the insurance, did she perhaps "forget" to pay the bank for the car payment? Have you called anyone to see if it was repossessed?

Also since you were gone for an extended time, you may want to check with the HOA if they maybe moved it (via tow) and it is sitting at some lot. Usually they have to contact the police when they tow so that when people assume their car is stolen they can say "no it was towed for parking illegally" or something. I go to the airport all the time, and they usually only give a few days notice for when they do parking area repairs. They put up a sign saying "No Parking" but there are already a bunch of cars in there. Those that return in time can drive out of the "closed" area. Those that don't the tow company takes all the cars offsite and they leave a tiny list of all the cars they towed. Perhaps the HOA repaved or cleaned or something and there was a day where you couldn't park where you were so they moved you.

Lots of possibilities.

Also check your insurance policy. Most policies are for 6 month periods, not 1 month. What they do is insure you for 6 months and then you can either pay it all upfront in bulk, or you can (what most people do) make monthly payments. You miss a monthly payment you are still insured but you can get collected on for the payments. You have to see that you have 2 contracts with the insurance company. 1 for insurance renewed every 6 months, and 1 for payment of the credit they extended you to cover that 6 month policy. Some do cancel immediately, but most don't.

 

don't pay on time they cancel the policy and notify motor vehicle so odds are her licensee is suspended too.... I think shes screwed all the way around..how did they steal it without the fob? are you sure it wasn't repossessed???

 

Are you sure it was stolen and not repossessed? By law you have to have full insurance at all times on the car because it has a lien holder and also why wasn't she on autopay while she was out of town or for that fact any time autopay gives you the security in knowing that your bills are paid you had no insurance there is no recourse of action

The insurer being your insurance company will cancel your insurance 12 midnight or 12:01 a.m. The following day unless you've asked for an extension there is no recourse for what happened you're going to have to bite the bullet on this one

 

What states suspend a driver's license just because a vehicle owned by that driver had an insurance cancellation? That certainly is not a practice where I live, I doubt my state even has such power.

Not all cars have lien holders. None of my household's cars do. Should insurance on any of them lapse, no one has any legal power to repossess. And if the cars are not on the street, the insurance lapse isn't even a legal violation.

You are making presumptions here. We don't yet know that the theft happened after the insurance lapsed. Evidence so far suggests that the insurance continued for at least half the vacation absence, so the odds that the theft happened while the insurance was still in force.

 

...we never watch TV, but the other day a reality show was on and they were repossessing vehicles. So that's what popped into my mind too. They just drive up and take em.

 

this just seems like too much coincidence.

 

California suspends your registration if your car becomes uninsured

 

That is far less draconian than suspending one's driver's license.

 

Was a police report made? The police would have advised you if it was towed or not, as most states have laws that a towed vehicle needs to be reported to the police within an hour of the tow.

 

^^ Police have made some royal screw-ups here, with the owners discovering the truth only after weeks of impound storage costs have piled up.

 

There should be more to this story.....hopefully we hear the end of this

 

and another thing here that's odd, the insurance company sends out a renewal notice 6 weeks before the policy is up and the final bill 4 weeks before its due so if they were gone for 2 weeks they still had enough time to pay up..Im in florida so none of this story adds up...the only people who pay month to month have bad credit or bad driving records as the monthly bill is twice as much

they didn't pay the bill and the car was repo'ed for lack of insurance even if the car payment was on time...the dealer will not allow an uninsured car of theirs to be on the road..its not the buyers car until its paid off

 

Pays for a $25k car in full but buys a monthly insurance policy that she forgot to pay? hmmm OK.

I hate to say it, but if you can't afford to have good insurance, you can't afford not to.

I'm sure there are some differences between insurance in the UK and the US, but for peace of mind you buy it on your credit card and pay the 12 months in full, or you pay 2 months as a deposit and then pay monthly.

It could be an unfortunate situation going on, but my gut feeling is there's much more to it.

 

Apart from insurance it would appear.

 

Mary - Thanks for the info...don't mind us we get carried away sometimes, as we do get troll posts sometimes. But I feel you have got a lot of good ideas from the 10 or so first responders. You could call the police to discuss the case and see if they realize the need to establish exact time and maybe advise re: the location technology Fuzzy1 mentioned.

 

don't call the insurance company, call the insurance commissioners office, and consumer affairs protection fact, i would call my state rep. if i felt i was getting steamrolled by the insurance company. if i have a history of paying on time, and was late due to being away and got cancelled, i wouldn't let it rest until i was dead.

unfortunately, you're in the land of bush, not sure how much consumer protection there is down there, ins. co's pretty much rule the roost.

 

maybe she sold it and just forgot, you know how old people can be forgetful ...maybe she never had it in the first place..