Car Insurance for Snowbird\resident of Florida with a second car in NJ?

[Joe G]

Moving to Fl from NJ come Jan\Feb. Own homes in each state. Intend to live in Florida probably 8-9 months of the year and in NJ for 3-4. Have a car garaged in NJ. Intend to by a used car for Florida. Intend to switch DL to Florida.

I have asked both my NJ and Florida agents and get completely different answers on how to properly get auto insurance in this case. The Florida agent claims I should be able to keep my NJ policy (with Metlife) and just tell them of my Fl license number and that I will not be using the car out of NJ. The NJ agent claims that I should add the NJ car to my Florida policy (will likely be with ASI) and state it is being garaged out of state. Hoping someone can give me the proper procedure.

Thanks.

 

[fed up]

Your situation is not uncommon and most people would just register all of the cars in Florida. If you want to avoid any question of proper registration and insurance simply have your agent write seperate policies for each car with the proper addresses and register the vehicle in the state where it is garaged. You could lose a discount for multiple vehicles on one policy but many people who use Florida as a residence address (180+ days for tax benefits) drive their Florida registered car into other states during the Summer months without issue.

 

[Joe G]

Your situation is not uncommon and most people would just register all of the cars in Florida. If you want to avoid any question of proper registration and insurance simply have your agent write seperate policies for each car with the proper addresses and register the vehicle in the state where it is garaged. You could lose a discount for multiple vehicles on one policy but many people who use Florida as a residence address (180+ days for tax benefits) drive their Florida registered car into other states during the Summer months without issue.

Except no NJ Insurance company will give me insurance on a NJ car in NJ with a FL license it appears. Florida insurers have no issue with insuring cars in Fl to people with NJ licenses, but NJ just wants to stick it to everyone it appears.

So my only option appears to be to register and insure the NJ car in Florida, which is fine but since the car is still in NJ, FL wants the title (which is in NJ and I would have to have it mailed to me down in Florida or get a duplicate copy from the DMV) and a Vin Certification\verification which needs to be done by a police officer or dealership and requires the physical presence of the car. And it is not like I have someone in NJ with access to the car. So it seems that my only option is to fly up to NJ to deal with this garbage, which at that point I think I will just drive the car to Florida and just rent while in NJ as it makes no sense to drive the car to Florida to register it and then drive it all the way back to NJ. The sad part is I bought a car just prior to this in Florida from a private seller and now I will have to go through the trouble of registering it in Florida so I can resell it once I get the NJ car down here.

My insurance agents (both the NJ and Florida ones) were worthless in this regard as if I knew this nonsense I would never have bought the car in Florida and would have just driven the NJ car down in the first place. Going to end up costing me $1000+ in needless airfare and registration fees all because my insurance agents either do not know what they are doing in this regard or are unfamiliar with the regs in NJ imo.