Hi All,
I live in NYC (company i work with is based in CA and boss gave me an year of permission to work remotely and that got extended for another one more year) and we moved from NJ (rented our NJ home but my wife commutes to work 2 days to her work in NJ).
When we moved, we did not change the address on our insurance address though our cars are garaged in NYC.
Few months back we had a claim with the insurance company and they requested the ez pass bills and other documentation required to process the claim and after reviewing the documents they determined the garaging address is different and rejected the claim. We paid out of pocket for the claim, moved to a new insurance with the updated address.
Few days ago our tenants received a letter from the state of NJ requesting the lease agreement for their stay and i am really nervous about the situation since the letter states that is in regards to the insurance fraud with the policy number. What will happen in this case? I am on a visa and really tense on how this will effect my status.
Was your original auto insurance tied to an umbrella policy, (auto, home, liability etc)
If you have/had a home owners or umbrella policy w/ the insurance company you left, do you still have those and did you call and update those policies to tell them you no longer lived in the home, but were now renting it?
I’m just wondering how is could be insurance fraud when the company denied the claim and you paid out of pocket, and switched to a new insurer?
nope. Its not an umbrella policy. We only had the auto insurance with the previous insurer.
We still haven’t got any notice from the state, however the letter that was sent to the tenant got me nervous and wanted to take care of anything beforehand. There was another claim (someone rear ended us) that was filed with the same insurer that was approved while having the same NJ address.
If you think you are being looked at for insurance fraud, I believe you should contact an attorney.
If you simply forgot to update your address, that does not seem to be fraud. If you submitted any paperwork indicating you still lived in NJ when you actually were living in NYC, that may constitute fraud, especially since the insurance company paid a prior claim.
This should not be a big issue if you were not at fault as your insurance company would just simply collect from the other individual’s insurance policy.
Was the letter addressed to the tenants?
Yes, it was addressed to the tenants
Was the policy # the same as your auto policy?
Yes, the policy # is same as my auto policy
Was the latest claim collusion or comprehensive?
It is collision.
Unless I’m missing something it does appear you (technically) did try to commit insurance fraud. You led the insurance company to believe you were still residing in NJ when in fact your cars were being garaged in NYC.
I ran your situation by my wife who is an attorney in Philadelphia and she suggested since you’re on a visa it’s imperative you meet with an attorney ASAP. She added that since you paid the claim out of pocket (and can prove it) and (hopefully) it’s minimal (i.e. <$5,000) it shows to your legitimacy and that this was nothing more than a misunderstanding. Good luck, I hope everything turns out fine.
The visa situation requires careful and professional representation. Hopefully it won’t be a huge deal (based on monetary amounts involved) and has a positive outcome for you.
