Adventures in Car Insurance.

I like Geico. They've been good to me. In general, I hate insurance -- our family has been screwed over more times than Britney on a good day by insurance -- but Geico has been pretty decent. Something about Warren Buffett's aura must infuse that place. The only problem is that Geico doesn't insure in Massachusetts. It insures in all 49 states and the District of Columbia, but not Massachusetts.

See, Massachusetts used to have the state legislature set auto insurance rates. That way, the evil corporations couldn't take advantage of families in lower economic strata. But since April, Mass has been relaxing its paternalistic grip and letting the butterflies go. Progressive rushed in like gangbusters, but Geico hasn't yet. This means that I have to switch insurance, even though I'm only here for a couple months.

Like I said, Progressive has been advertising like a banshee, so I took them up on their offer, and it turns out I get a better policy with them at a lower price than I had with Geico. That doesn't mean anything really since it's a different state, and I have yet to see how Progressive actually deals with a claim (*knock on wood*). Regardless, I pulled the trigger. I didn't realize that old insurance, my ex-policy with Geico, will get pro rated back and refunded. Sweet! The market works sometimes.

Except that the same reason that allows Progressive and Geico to be so cheap is the current stitch in my side: because they are direct insurers (eliminating the middleman agents of yesteryear -- well, and Massachusetts), I don't actually talk to anyone in person. And it turns out that Massachusetts, God bless them, requires a specific form to be filled out (the infamous RMV-1 -- Google it! And then burn it in effigy for me!) that requires title information.

That info is HARD to come by. I don't have title to my car yet. Still paying that good ol' principal and interest, amortized (I actually know what this all means thanks to law school of all places). Apparently, the old insurance agents doing this in person knew how to do all this with one hand tied behind their backs, but Progressive's a little regressive here. I called around and finally figured out that the bank financing my car does have the title, just not readily available, so they have to mail a copy of it to me.

Then I can call Progressive back, have them fill out the forms, and FedEx(!) the RMV-1 form to me, so that I can go to the Massachusetts RMV (that's Boston speak for DMV), and convert my registration and license, get new plates (tags to you Southerners), and then get my car inspected such that I may burn $4/gallon without fear of a moving violation, so that I can pass the character & fitness portion of the bar exam. Yup. It's all one full circle.