Geico Auto Insurance Hurricane Sandy SCAM! New Jersey

It is GEICOs policy, and has been for a long time a matter of fact, that any party who resides with you in the same household is required to be on your insurance policy.  There are a few exceptions to this rule.

For example, if you live in an upstairs apartment you would not have to add your downstairs neighbor on your policy as they don't actually live with you even though they are physically in the same household. If you lived with a roommate then your roommate would be required to be added to your policy, however they could be added as having "Other Insurance" or non-driver...effectively causing their driving record not to effect your policy.

If you have children of driving age or whom have a permit/conditional license then they too must be added to your policy. This is common practice among insurance companies as they need to properly evaluate the risk.

Do I as an employee agree with this? To be honest, no. Not all the time. But unfortunately from working at the company I see countless times situations where an insureds son or daughter or boyfriend/girlfriend get into an accident in the insured vehicle and then it comes to light that they live with the insured yet they are not on their policy. This in turn causes the insurance companies, not just GEICO, to view you as a riskier customer to underwrite for and thus they would have to charge you a highter premium.

In your situation they view your boyfriend in the same way they would view a husband/wife/spouse or domestic partmer, as a signicant other who will likely be driving your car. If he has his own insurance, even if its with GEICO, then he can be listed as a "Other Insurance, Non Driver" on your policy.

Does your boyfriend driver your car? Once or twice, or maybe to get milk from 7/11? Maybe he does, maybe he doesnt. Unfortunately in the eyes of insurance companies they cant always go on your word. The reason is while you personally may not be lying, other people do lie and as you can see it does ruin it for those of us who are honest.

All in all, what GEICO did was normal. Perhaps you got a quote from Allstate or State Farm and they didnt include your boyfriend in your rate assement. If they didnt then their employee wasnt going their job. They should be asking for all parties of driving age in your household. If they don't, then they then made a mistake as a sales agent.

I apologize that your experience wasnt a postivie one but ill give you a little trick. Try adding someone who is a good driver onto your policy. For example, if you add your mother who has been a driver for 30 years and has never had tickets or an accident then there is the chance your premiums could be cut in half! The reason for this is GEICO (or insurance companies in general) now look at your policy and see: 1 car, 2 drivers. They now rate you assuming that your mother drives the car 50% of the time thus they rate the policy according. You may be a good driver but having a older driver with no/little tickets and no/few accidents will in all honesty cause your rates to do down. Also keep in mind, women do have cheaper rates because statistically they are better driver.

To accurately respond to what your saying here we would need some more information. There are multiple reasons as to why your claim would be placed under investigation. It is not GEICOs intention to deny a claim or to provide with with an unfair settlement.

Based on what you did state in your report above it appears that your claim was quite possibly being investigated by GEICOs Special Investigations Unit (SIU). As to why your claim was reffered to SIU - there could be a multitude of reasons. Did you make a recent change to your policy within the past 30 days? Was your policy withing the first 55 days of a reissue with an insurance lapse? Were damages inconsistent with the facts you provided or inconsistent with damages that should have been caused from the facts provided?

Those are just a few of the reasons your claim may have been assigned to SIU as when any one of those situations is the case it creates a trigger, or a coverage warning, prompting your adjuster to dig into the situation a bit more. At that point it is your adjuters discretion that decides whether your claim should be assigned to SIU or not.

Sometimes claims are submitted to SIU on a gut feeling. The adjusters that work here are people too as just like any other investigative job - you have to execute your best judgement and if something seems suspicious then the adjuster has to handle it appropriately. As far as the outcome of your situation, im not sure. Im not your adjuster nor do I have your claim information but you can always call GEICO and speak with a supervisor and they can break it down as to what and why.

In regards to your vehicle - cars lose their value. Im sorry to have to say it but any expensive car whether it be a Mercedes, BMW, Lexus or Cadillac or any other for that matter will lose value the moment your name goes on that title. Everytime that car changes hands it now has a documented new owner and this causes people to not want the car as much as if it had 1 less owner hence the reason for the depreciation. Maybe you bought your car new...same thing. You can buy a mercedes and as soon as it leaves the show room floor it has already depreciated a handful.

In theory, you could buy your vehicle, finance it and then drive it onto the road and total it 2 minutes later and chances are your will get quite a bit less than what the car was worth before you got it - definiately less than what you paid.

Again, I apologize if you didnt have a positive experience buy please provide some more details.