Geico failed to notify insured that scheduled payment did not process, retroactively cancels policy after accident for nonpayment.

[LEGAL2012]

I'm located in Broward County Florida. Geico sent out the required ten-day notice of cancellation due to us missing payment date. My wife utilized Geico's website to schedule a payment to process in a few days, before the cancellation date. Geico sends an email confirming payment is scheduled. Payment did not process on scheduled date, perhaps due to insufficient funds but could be because it was a foreign bankcard or some other reason. Geico made no effort to contact insured. A simple voicemail etc. could have notified us and we could've paid the simple installment through other means. We had no idea we were uninsured.

We had an accident 5 days after the scheduled payment and also after the 10 day notice of cancellation. my wife immediately called Geico who processed the claim and provided us with a claim number and sent us an email confirming the claim. 6 hours later, Geico sent an email notice of cancellation of policy. They arbitrarily set a cancellation date of 2 days before the accident and 3 days after the scheduled payments that did not process.

Is Geico protected by complying with the required 10 day notification prior to cancellation?

 

[Zigner]

Yep - don't cut things so close in the future.

 

[HighwayMan]

If it was me and my insurance was scheduled to be cancelled I'd be calling them every day to make sure that the payment was received and went through. Why are you using a foreign card?

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

They gave you all the notification required.

 

[cbg]

Why do you think it should be Geico's responsibility to notify you? Why don't you accept any responsibility to keep track of your payments and make sure it's processed?

 

[adjusterjack]

Now for the insurance law. Once GEICO sends the 10 day notice of cancellation for non-payment it has NO FURTHER OBLIGATION to you.

It's entirely up to you to make sure the payment gets made and posted.

GEICO didn't "arbitrarily" do anything. The policy lapsed at the end of the ten days because your payment wasn't received by the deadline.

That you got "confirmation" of the claim means nothing. Claims are automatically opened when reported and THEN investigated for coverage.

 

[Taxing Matters]

If you want the insurance it is YOUR obligation to see that the payment is made and processed on time. You waited until the last minute and then either paid with an account with insufficient funds or a foreign account that the company couldn't use. It's your responsiblity to ensure the account has sufficient funds and that it is one that Geico can process. You needed to follow up to ensure it was done. It was not Geico's responsibility to tell you about it. Failure to pay the premium on time results in cancellation of the policy, and you knew that was coming because of the 10 day notice. I'm not seeing anything here that will force Geico to pay that claim. This is unfortunately what happens when you let the policy lapse. Geico is not required to hold your hand through this.

 

[stealth2]

When I've been in the situation of missing a payment (hey, it happens) with a consequence of a possible service cancellation, I've done exatly as HighwayMan suggested. Scheduled a payment (by phone), inquired when I could expect said payment to be applied, and then following up daily until it was processed and applied to the account. This really is not rocket science.