What Do I Need to Prove to the DMV I Really Do Have New York Auto Insurance?

What Do I Need to Prove to the DMV I Really Do Have New York Auto Insurance?

For all of you out there that have ever relocated to a place where the DMV wasn't completely psychotic about the proofs and paperwork you needed to register your vehicle and get a new, in-state drivers license…you obviously haven't relocated within the last decade. I'm not sure if it's the after-effects of 9/11 coming back to continue to plague us eight years later or a very genuine desire to kill more trees, but the last time I had to change my driver's license over I think I jumped through more hoops than the tigers working for Siegfried and Roy. Don't worry, you will too…and that's before you get on the topic of my New York auto insurance.

Now, I know there isn't a state in the U.S. that doesn't force you to have auto

insurance coverage before you're allowed to register your car. It's like a huge conspiracy to make sure no one is out driving around without coverage-which, as far as government conspiracies go, isn't too bad! The problem is, when you've just relocated and you're waiting the obligatory two to three weeks for your New York auto insurance (complete with its handy dandy, no-fault coverage) to come your way you can be stricken with the overwhelming urge to lay day on the floor of the DMV and throw a tantrum of epic proportions the likes of which the world hasn't seen out of you since you were a toddler.

Trust me, I've been there.

Since you really don't want to have to wait a month or more to get your registration taken care of (state police tend to jump on out of state tags like a cat on the first mouse it's seen in a year) you have to come up with a way to prove to the lovely people at the DMV who don't want to be dealing with this bureaucracy any more than you do that you really do have coverage. Here you have two choices:

1) Wait for your New York auto insurance card to show up in the mail (they actually come with the words "New York Auto Insurance" in huge letters right across the top) and then take it in to the DMV.

2) Ask your auto insurance carrier to fax your insurance information to the DMV.

If you're going to have your information faxed over make sure they include your name and a note that you're going to be coming in to register an out of state vehicle. Otherwise, those precious pieces of paper could find their way straight into a trash can and you'll have to start all over again. The hardest part of getting your registration information is always getting all your paperwork in the same place at the same time (which is nowhere near as easy as it sounds).

Just be grateful that after you've done it once you're not going to have to do it over…and over…and over again.