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For those of you with USAA ins who shipped a car from the mainland to the VI - did you change your USAA policy to the VI prior to shipping the car or once it arrived on island?
We previously shipped a car and were told we needed to keep our stateside insurance until it arrived at the port. We want to ship a second car and a different agent is telling us we need to go ahead and switch the policy to the VI policy prior to shipping. Of course we will be calling back to confirm but I was interested in how anyone on here handled the switch? Did you keep your US policy in force prior to shipping or did you purchase a VI policy while still in the US mainland?
TIA!
Posted : September 4, 2019 10:50 pm
We just shipped a Jeep back in May and have USAA Insurance. We kept the stateside policy in effect until the Jeep was on St Croix. We then changed it over to a VI policy. We were told by USAA that our stateside insurance covered the vehicle through the transit process.
Posted : September 5, 2019 6:57 am
We moved here in December and have USAA. My car was damaged in transit but the transporter's insurance covered the repair. Either way you're in good shape. USAA is awesome. Wish they would insure homes here.
Posted : September 6, 2019 5:57 am
We received our car on St Croix just last week. We called USAA ahead of time and they put the information into their system, then had us call them on the day the car was picked up for transport to make the policy change.
Make sure to print a copy of your new VI insurance card before you leave, you'll need it to register your car on this end. You'll need your original title as well as a letter of permission from your lender if you have a loan on it.
Also, make sure you take EVERYTHING out of your car (you're only allowed to have the Jack and spare tire in it), anything else may cause trouble with your customs inspection.
Our shipping company paid the road tax and import duty (ours was a Toyota) and we paid them when we picked up the car. Some companies do that step for you and others don't.
The DMV is open 7-3 weekdays and the cargo port is open 8-4. The DMV wasn't nearly as bad as we'd heard, but check your new papers carefully before you leave the window (it took 3 tries to get ours correct).
The inspection is more like the one they did on cars in the US before 1990 (horn, lights, etc.).
Sorry for expanding so much on your question, but it took a lot of looking and some experience for us to learn those lessons.
Posted : September 17, 2019 12:48 am
