If the car owner forgets to pay the premium, the policy is suspended for fifteen days. During the suspension the car cannot circulate because the insurance is not operational. So there are big risks if the insurance is paid late, because it is like driving a car that is not insured at all.
The deadlines indicated above are certain. The Civil Code in art. 1899, in fact, provides that the insurance becomes operational at midnight of the day the contract was signed. This means that if the owner takes out the policy in the morning, the opening hours of the insurance offices, in theory it could not circulate until 24 hours of that same day.
In jurisprudence it is admitted, however, that the insurance can insert different clauses in the contract, so the policy becomes effective immediately.
So, first of all, you need to check the date and time of entry into force of the policy to avoid the risk of driving without coverage. On this point the policies are always very precise and also report the time of payment.
There are great risks if the insurance is paid late
The rule also applies to accident insurance, for example. In the event of a claim,insurance will immediately check whether the accident, to the car or to the person, occurred when the policy was already operational. The moment of entry into force will be calculated on the basis of the stipulation time and the clauses of the contract which indicate how many hours of interval must elapse before it is effective.
Another risk
Beware of another risk. The civil code, in art. 1901, establishes that the contract is complete only upon payment of the premium. It is not enough to sign the contract for it to be valid, but it is also necessary to pay the first installment. It is a legal provision that cannot be modified by the parties. So you don’t need to ask your own insurer to have the policy come into effect even in the absence of payment.
The fifteen-day suspension concerns the interval between the first policy and the subsequent renewal. If at the time of renewal the driver does not pay the installment immediately, there is a fifteen-day suspension of the contract.
Since, technically, this is a case where the payment has not been made, the consequences are the same as described above. The contract is not complete, it cannot produce its effects and will begin to produce them after the regularization of the payment. This is why the policy does not cover for the fifteen days of maximum suspension. The risks in the event of circulation, therefore, are maximum and serious.
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