Double Auto Insurance in Massachusetts and Colorado

Q: My family recently moved from Massachusetts to Colorado. In Colorado, we were required to get an auto policy in order to get a CO registration and CO plates. In MA, they do not allow you to cancel your auto policy until you cancel your plates. This means we have been double-covered for a period of time before we get our CO plates. Our CO auto insurance company informed us that we should be reimbursed the period from when our CO policy went into place to the date we get plates (as long as it is within the 90 day period allotted by law in CO) by our MA insurance company. When I checked with our MA company however, we were told that would not happen, so now we are paying for 2 policies currently until we obtain plates. Auto and Homeowners insurance went into affect the day we closed on our CO residence and we do not have a residence in MA. What are the laws regarding this? We should not have to pay 2 policies because we moved.

A: Oh, Massachusetts!  This state is an insurance beast all it’s own, so much so that some insurance companies refuse to write insurance in that state and the ones that do usually have a whole department dedicated just to dealing with Massachusetts.

Agreed that you should not have to pay for two auto insurance policies, the problem is that insurance is regulated by the states and you are stuck in limbo between two of them.

What I would recommend is contacting the Division of Insurance in Massachusetts (http://www.mass.gov/ocabr/government/oca-agencies/doi-lp/) or the RMV and tell them your situation. You technically have insurance on that vehicle, even if it is in the state of Colorado and that should suffice for their insurance requirement given the situation.