Snowbirds Shouldn't Wing It With Car Insurance

If you’re a snowbird who drives South each winter, don’t forget to think about your car insurance needs.

Related: Survey Exposes Common Car Insurance Misconceptions

According to consumer financial-information provider NerdWallet.com, each year nearly a million snowbirds flock to Florida during the winter months and about 300,000 to Arizona. As they shuttle back and forth for extended stays, it's important that they stay on top of their car-insurance coverage, which is impacted by factors such as where their car is registered and insured versus where it's kept.

"You can't insure a car and register it in two different states, except in rare circumstances," auto-insurance website CarInsurance.com stated. "That means your first hurdle is finding out whether you must register in your winter home state."

For example, in Florida, anyone who keeps their car their for 90 or more days, consecutively or not, must comply with Sunshine State registration requirements, while Arizona snowbirds must only register their car there if they stay seven months of the year. In both of these snowbird states, part-time residents are permitted to keep their home-state driver's licenses, but if you register your car at your winter home, you also must insure it through an agent and company licensed in that state, CarInsurance.com stated.

Something else to be aware of: state-by-state coverage minimums. In Florida, for example, drivers must carry at least $10,000 in both personal-injury protection and property-damage liability coverage, CarInsurance.com noted. As Florida coverage minimums are among the nation's lowest, the website stated, snowbirds should at least match their home states' minimums. However, maintaining only the minimum coverage is also a good way to lose that vacation home if anything major happens.

Neither NerdWallet nor CarInsurance.com recommends that snowbirds drop coverage and stick their car in storage while they're back in their home states due to both the risk of damage or theft while the owners are away, as well as the inconvenience of having to re-register and re-insure the vehicle each winter. Instead, CarInsurance.com suggests snowbirds check with their insurance provider about low-mileage discounts or multi-policy discounts for purchasing coverage in both states from the same company.

Whatever snowbirds do, they should resist any illicit urge to misrepresent where they're keeping their cars.

"Your auto insurance rates are determined based on where your car is housed," CarInsurance.com stated. "By misrepresenting where you car is garaged, you run the risk that the insurer in your home state could deny claims."

Another concern for people living part time in two different states is car recalls. When an automaker issues a safety recall of one of its models, it sends an official notice to the address at which that vehicle is registered. That means a recall notice could arrive the day after someone leaves their permanent home in, say, Pennsylvania to head down to Florida for the next six months, all the while driving around with a potentially deadly safety defect in their vehicle.

While most snowbirds likely have their mail forwarded to their part-time address while they're away, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a vehicle identification number lookup feature on its website to help you determine if your vehicle has been recalled. If you're not receiving mail for some reason it might be wise to check periodically to see if your vehicle has been recalled; you also could contact the manufacturer and ask them to keep both addresses on file for correspondence.

Moreover, in the wake of the massive ongoing Takata Corp. airbag recall — in which cars kept in high-humidity states such as Florida are specifically at risk for the potentially deadly malfunction — we wondered if the periodic exposure to such humidity put snowbirds' vehicles at increased risk. Meanwhile, they might not be mailed a notice at all if their cars are registered in their home state. NHTSA says that if the car goes back and forth between homes with the snowbird, not to worry — longer-term humidity exposure has been linked to the defect.

This transient situation, according to NHTSA, does not carry the same risk as those vehicles that reside full-time in areas of high absolute humidity. The most current information points to a product that is defective in regions prone to long-term high humidity and temperatures, and does not indicate that those who travel to these regions during periods of lower humidity (such as snowbirds) are subject to the same level of risk due to reduced exposure and hot-and-humid conditions.