Colorado man spots mystery driver on insurance policy – and premiums jump by $312. This is a lesson
Owning a car is expensive due to the cost of car insurance. So when you discover hidden costs that give you pause, you ask questions.
But what if you end up paying extra for an extra driver you’ve never heard of? This happened to Ed Fan in Colorado, who got insurance from Progressive.
Fan received a notice that his six-month auto insurance premium had increased by $312 because the insurance company discovered there was an extra driver in his home. Not only were the information false, but Van had to overcome hoops to convince his insurance company that the driver was not, in fact, a member of his family who had access to his vehicle.
Here’s how he solved the problem on his own, and what you can do to avoid the same problem.
The comprehensive website Policygenius estimates that the average cost of a full-risk auto insurance policy is $136 per month, or $1,638 per year.
However, different factors can determine how much an insurance company can charge you. These include your location, the make and model of your vehicle, and the number of drivers on the policy.
It’s not uncommon for car insurance companies to charge higher premiums for additional drivers. For example, you may find that if your teen gets a driver’s license and adds it to your policy, your premiums will go up.
In Pham’s case, the insurance company was barking up the wrong tree when he was charged for an extra driver he had never met. As Fan confirmed, the only other residents of his home were his four dogs, who were clearly not driving his car.
So what happened? It turned out that his insurance company used a third-party database to search for hidden drivers. The database incorrectly identified a driver named Lawaia, who had a 31-letter last name that he could not pronounce.
In response, Van called his insurance company and asked that Lavaya be removed from his policy. But he was told he needed to speak to underwriting. He spent several hours dealing with them before making any progress. Eventually, Fan was asked to fill out a form confirming that he didn’t know who the new driver was.
