Auto Insurance?
Question:
Answer:
It sounds like you're already reinstated your policy and have insurance again, so that's good. If you haven't done that, call your company ASAP and get your policy back in force.
As for your rates, many companies now use pay history as part of their premium decisions. In most cases, it is only a small portion of the decision calculus, weighed in with factors like your driving activity (much more important), your credit, where you live and how long you've been with the company (among many, many other factors). Most likely you won't see an effect on your premium; however, you may see a little bump.
If you've been with the same company for a long time (several years or more) and you do see a bump in your premium, have your agent call on your behalf and ask for consideration based upon your tenure. If you haven't had any claims/accidents/traffic violations, reference that as well.
What you don't want to happen is that you have a pattern of not paying your premium. I'd recommend that you get on an EFT draft if you can so that you're never late. If you have a pattern of late payments and you have cancellations, the company can choose not to reinstate your coverage and they will consider that an adverse factor against you if you do have to file a claim. If this is the only blip on your payment history, no sweat.
Good luck!
your rates will go up. insurance companies will rate you with a person that never had insurance before just because of you lacking it for 1 week.
You need to get insurance with another carrier or reinstate with your current carrier before thirty days has past. If you don't then you will be written under indemnity and you will have to pay twice as much. Check with the carrier you had and make sure your policy has expired. Most companies have a ten to fifteen day grace period that you can pay within after your due date. Just make sure you get insured before thirty days has lapsed.
There shouldn't be any effect, as long as you didn't have an accident during that time. Insurance companies generally get upset if you have a lapse longer than 30 days.
Relax a period of one week will not have any impact on your "history" or premiums. The only thing that gets looked at is if you have an accident and you are not insured or if you purchased a vehicle and didn't get insurance on it. Think about it this way, if you own a vehicle and store it for a year there is no reason why you need to have insurance on it. An auto insurance company will not hold that against you. Trust me I've done this several times before.
If you have a good history and quickly paid it when you realized there was an error, generally the insurance company won't mind it much (as long as you weren't in an accident). They will note it on your file, but that doesn't carry to another insurance company when they check your history. Even though you lapsed, most states have a delay in the reporting process and a week isn't a big deal.
If it is questioned by a future insurance company or your current one, you just be honest about it and they may just waive it.
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