The General Insurance Question

[gordsmash]

Ok so I have auto insurance through The General and recently my policy payment due date was for today which is July 13th. I sent my payment to them on July 11th, Friday at like 2am in the morning and everything went through and it said they received my payment on my billing history and emailed me my receipt, so I thought everything was good and my next due date is on August 13th.

Well I just so happen to log onto my account to check out my ID cards that I was going to print out some new ones, and all of a sudden my policy says that it is cancelled due to non-payment. Now I just sent them the money on July 11th, 2 days ago and everything said it was fine. So apparently according to the site, I drove this morning with cancelled auto insurance even though I paid for it.

I sent them a message online asking them to fix this but they wont be available until tomorrow since they are closed today. Well, I have work in the morning and I need to drive my car but I am a little scared if my online account is saying my policy is cancelled.

I have my ID cards in my car, if I get pulled over is it going to say my policy is cancelled even though I payed? Would an officer allow me to contact my insurance company to get it straightened out? I live in Ohio if that makes a difference, not sure if insurance is handled the same way in every state.

Thanks for your time!

EDIT: Forgot to mention I payed them directly with my debit card so they should have received it near instantly.

 

[Josh]

There is usually a grace period, I presume you went past that and waited until the very last minute? Even if you did, if they accept payment, it generally means that legally they are assuming the risk again. Is it showing up as a payment taken on your debit card? If for some reason there was a claim tomorrow and you can prove that you paid them, then they'd be on the hook for it. It's also entirely possible they're just waiting for it to clear and that tomorrow morning it'll process and show up active.

If you do get pulled over they might issue you a ticket, but you'd have to take that ticket to court and explain it.

Depending on when you have to go to work you might want to just get a ride vs risking it, you won't know anything for sure until you talk to them, but that's my take on it.

 

[gordsmash]

Yeah the payment is on my banks website and I do have the receipt directly from them saying that I did pay it and the time that I did pay for it. The sites says that my policy payment was due at 12:01am on July 13th but I guess they havent completely authorized the payment yet or something. My work is only 3 minutes away so I will probably just drive since its right down the street, but I really hope they don't expect me to pay the re-instatement fee for my policy even though I payed it before the date they required it. If they try to charge me anything I'll probably just call them and complain about it.

 

[Josh]

Candidly, if it actually hit the point where it was cancelled for non-payment, you've had a lot of fair warning. Them charging a reinstatement fee isn't that unreasonable. It's always better to just pay them to begin with

 

[gordsmash]

True they did give me plenty of warning but I thought my payment would have been received immediately by them like it said on my receipt from them. Or maybe their system is slow to update or something, not sure.

Anyways thanks for the replies.