Which is Worse: the DMV, or an Insurance Company?

More insurance woes for us. (My husband has the WORST LUCK with insurance. It is never his fault, but insurance company computers seem to HATE him and they are always screwing up his accounts. He then must take time off from work, go to the insurance company and complain. They look at everything, look at the computer, and say "Oh, yes, clearly it's not your fault; we'll take care of it" and it DOESN'T get taken care of. He has epic problems that have gone on for MONTHS and even YEARS at a stretch. His luck with them is so bad it was actually a slight consideration of mine when we decided to marry. (Don't tell him that, 'kay?) Ultimately I decided my very GOOD luck with insurance computers would counter his bad. But I digress.)

Apparently when we moved from Connecticut to Mass and transferred over our insurance to a new insurance company the old insurance company reported us to the state when we cancelled our policy. This is standard procedure; nothing wrong with that. Then somehow in the switchover our CT plates disappeared. We assume we turned them in, but apparently they are not on file.

Three years later, the state of CT tries to contact us. Why three years later instead of the instant our insurance was canceled and the plates were missing, I don't know. When they can't find us--oooh, that would take what, five minutes on a government database?--they decide to revoke my husband's license. Problem is, since he hadn't lived in the state for YEARS, he didn't HAVE a license anymore. You have to surrender it when you get a new license. So the state of CT apparently created a SPECIAL license just for him so they could revoke it.

We know nothing of this, sitting blissfully and unnotified in our Massachusetts home of several years.

Fast forward another three years. The state of MA finally finds out--why it took this long, I don't know--and mails us a letter saying they are going to revoke my husband's MA license. When he inquires as to WHY, he finds out it's due to Connecticut revoking his bogus CT license they created for him three years previous. So he calls the state of CT.

Their main issue is, (so they tell him) they believe we've been driving around all this time uninsured, despite our canceling the insurance and the registrations and all that stuff, and RE-registering in another state the same day. I mean, the exact same car was registered in MA right when the CT reg was canceled, so it's not like there's no official government paper trail. But that, apparently, is Not Their Job.

They will accept nothing less than proof from the insurance company that we've in fact been insured all this time. Forget the registration, the licenses, the change of address, the tax returns and everything else showing we've lived in MA all this time. They need proof the car was insured. Otherwise we're out $700.00.

So how hard can this be? We call the insurance company, who goes, "Huh?" So we explain; and say we need some sort of proof of insurance from them for this car (which, incidentally (to make things even more fun), we no longer own). We foolishly assume they hear of stuff like this all the time and they have some proof-of-insurance form they mail out, but no. This is all news to them. We explain that the State of CT is threatening us with several hundreds of dollars in fines and the State of MA is threatening to revoke my husband's license if we don't get this proof. The insurance company says "Huh?"

They can call the entire policy up just fine on their database, but since there's apparently no "print" key they are stymied. Finally someone takes a trip and goes to the archives, which for all I know is just a big cardboard box in the break room. Then they come back and say "Apparently we destroy our paper records after five years."

Gak. I tell my husband he should just show up for jail right now a la Martha Stewart and get it over with.....

MJ