Problems with insurance billing. Just bail on Tesla's?

[gmc333]

Hi folks,

I'm in California, and before I took delivery of my Model Y last year, I shopped around and Tesla's insurance was cheaper by about $400/year compared to the other bids I received. So I signed up with them. A couple weeks ago, I got a notice that the insurance payment wasn't clearing. This was true because I had cancelled that card. I added a new payment method (a card that is working for a bunch of other online payments). BTW the new card also worked to cover the premium connection. Then I get more emails saying that payment isn't clearing and that my insurance is going to get cancelled. I changed payment method a second time, but it still doesn't appear to have cleared. I've called the toll free number three times today, and each time I'm told that hold-time is over an hour, and they disconnect the call between 2 and 40 minutes into the hold.

I don't think there's any other way of contacting the company and at this point I'm thinking of just going with another insurance provider that can actually take payment.

Is anyone else having problems like this?

Thanks,

Greg

 

[rlsd]

Maybe the email was out of date after you switched to the new card. Probably you should manually pay for the current bill cycle first (I don't know how) and check if the next bill cycle is OK later. You may want to check your credit card security settings too. I was able to talk to Tesla insurance after a few minutes waiting. You may want to call early during the day to avoid busy time.

 

[gmc333]

Thanks for the suggestions. I did try calling earlier, and after about 40 minutes the call went through. The person at the other end was able to process my payment with the card that I'd set up several days before. He could not explain why, after changing cards, the system didn't try to process the payment again, and instead sent cancellation notices. He then told me that my next payment would be about 35% higher due to a rate hike. I asked if I should have been notified of the hike. He said that their systems showed that email went out last month, but I don't have it in my in box or my spam folder.
The rate hike also cancels out any price advantage Tesla had over my other insurance bids. Also, the only way to cancel a policy is to call in, which I never want to do again. So I cancelled the policy during that call, went online, and added my model Y to the policy that covers my wife's car in about five minutes. So-o-o-o much less hassle.