
Ustlach

Sep 8, 2011, 1:25 PM
Post #6 of 12
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Re: [Altahabana] US Insurance for a Mexican car
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Those policies are intended for Mexican citizens or legal resident aliens. My Mexican partner buys that insurance for his car. A Mexican voting card is always asked for, along with his Mexican driver's license. Stamped right on the front page of the policy you receive in bold red letters with a bold red box around it, in English, is something to the effect that the insurance will not apply to or cover non-Mexican tourists. (See my attachment here.) Some tourists are happily and willingly misled into thinking this insurance applies to them and will cover them because inside that red box, in bold red ink, in English, it says the insurance is for residents of Mexico only. And they convince themselves that because they live in Mexico now that makes them residents. WRONG!!! Regardless of what you think your status is in Mexico, unless you are a Mexican citizen or a legalized resident alien, you are a tourist. Unless you have diplomatic or some other equally exotic status. The people who sell the policies around the border (although my partner buys his right here in town before we leave town, and you can even buy them online) will tell you anything you want to hear to convince you this insurance will cover you. Just like those timeshare salesmen in Cabo will tell you anything they have to to get you into a sales meeting. These policies are for Mexicans with Mexican plated cars. I have been fighting this battle the entire four years I have lived here in Sonora. As far as I am concerned, the only really safe and honest way for a tourist (and I am a tourist, with an FM2 waiting for my third renewal) to insure a non-Mexican vehicle, is to buy a tourist policy for Mexico and a regular insurance policy from a US insurance company in the USA. And, I hasten to add, regardless of what any US insurance agent may tell you (bear in mind, they are just sales people and do not adjudicate claims) if you lie to a US insurance company about your legal residence/domicile, your policy with them will be null and void. I pay rent for a room in the USA where I claim my legal domicile and I have a legal, signed contract for it purely to prove my legal residence/domcile to insurance companies, the US Postal Service (so I can legally rent a UPS mail box), and for my credit union and credit card companies. I occupy the room maybe four weeks out of the year. But I have to do it in order to be able to buy insurance for my US plated vehicle in the USA and to remain on the right side of other laws regarding my mail, banking, and credit cards. It is the additional cost required for living with one foot in Mexico and the other one in the USA.
(This post was edited by Ustlach on Sep 8, 2011, 1:28 PM)
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