When Samantha Anderson addressed the corner sunny after Christmas dinner in Miramichi last December, a deer jumped in front of her car in a blind hill.
All he could do was prepare for the impact and tell his daughter to do the same.
“We have never had a car accident, so it was petrifying for us,” Anderson said.
He stopped on the opposite side of Route 425, then assured that his eight -year -old daughter was fine. The car was very damaged, so Anderson called the police and began to clarify debris scattered on the road.
What followed was a dispute with an insurance company that has opened the eyes of the single mother, who hopes that sharing her story can help others.
Your main lesson: pay more attention to what you are signing, do some tasks, ask more questions.
Registered for GAP insurance
Anderson said that the claim on his regular and required insurance policy was resolved within a week after his car was totally.
But he had also bought a policy, called GAP Insurance, after the concessionaire offered by his car.
Trying to pass that statement has been a fight, he said, he is now about to declare himself in bankruptcy.
Although he admits that he could have been more careful when he bought the policy, his case also raises a question about who can sell such insurance.
New Brunswick officials say more than 100 dealers in this province can sell gap insurance. But throughout the country in British Columbia, dealers are prohibited from selling it, because that province feels that they are not qualified.
Anderson bought the gap policy of an Ontario company called Assureway Protection Corporation in Kaat Auto in Rogersville, which sold the car, a Mitsubishi RVR, in January 2024.
A New Brunswick woman warns car buyers who ask questions before buying gap insurance as well. It is intended to cover something that is still due to a car loan after an accident, but for Samantha Anderson, it has only been a headache.
The policy was presented as an option that would provide tranquility due to the money they had borrowed to buy the car.
If a vehicle is totaled, GAP insurance can cover the money still owed in a car loan beyond the depreciated value that is covered by the regular insurance policy.
Anderson is a social worker for a non -profit organization and needs a car in his work. She described her Mitsubish as her “dreamy car”, and wanted to make sure he was covered.
But he admitted that he did not investigate much about the gap policy or in the company that sold it.
“I guess that could be in me,” he said.
CBC News spoke with Roland Gauvin of Kaat Auto, who said that the concessionaire no longer sells insurance products from Assureway due to problems that employees and customers had answers.
“I only sell the product,” he asked him when Kaat was responsible for Anderson’s problems. “I am not responsible.”
Trying to deal with Assureway was not easy for Anderson. When he called, they told him to make his claim online and he was immediately hung.
On March 13, he received a letter from Assureway saying that there were “certain inconsistencies” in his claim, but did not provide details.
Five days later, an unidentified Assureway agent asked in an email for photos of dead deer. Anderson had already sent the photos of his car’s company in the demolition courtyard, with a visible deer hair in the vehicle.
An insurance company that seeks proof of an accident also has access to an accident report, according to Sergeant RCMP. Jason Leblanc.
He confirmed that the police received a call on a deer collision in Strathadam on December 27, but said the officers were not sent to the scene because no one was injured and no other vehicle was involved.
A staff member took collision details by phone to complete a report.
“I’m so tired,” says Anderson
The emails that Anderson sent to the Assureway program has communicated at least 15 times to obtain updates.
“I have prayed. I have cried by email because they will not answer the phone.”
More than five months after the accident, there is still no resolution.
“I am a single mother with three children trying to survive, trying to make a living. I have a very good job, but he needs a car.”
The gap policy cost Anderson $ 2,500 for a period of seven years.
The price of the car label was $ 38,000, but an anterior car loan that was still paying raised the invoice to $ 48,000, which is what the gap policy had to cover if necessary.
Anderson said his main insurance policy paid around $ 19,000 after the accident, so he is waiting for the rest to leave Assureway.
“I am so tired of trying to put it, prison and prison,” he said. “The law rates are too expensive and I am still paying a car payment for a car that is no longer here.”
CBC News requested an interview with Assureway, but received a brief email from an unidentified employee several days later.
“We have found the questionable claim for several reasons due to irregularities in the claim, therefore, his state of investigation,” said the statement. “Our research is currently in progress. [Anderson] He is fully aware of this state. “
The irregularities were not identified in the email, which continued to say that the company would no longer discuss the issue for privacy reasons.
The day CBC News tried to talk to Assureway, Anderson received an email from the company for the first time in several weeks.
“We are still doing our research. We will update it as soon as possible,” said the email.
The lawyer wants to answer the public insurance questions
While Anderson wants to have asked more questions about the gap policy, there is a public office in New Brunswick only for that purpose.
Michèle Pelletier, New Brunswick’s consumer defender for insurance, said since 2005, his Bathurst office has presented about 1,200 calls annual New Brunswickers with insurance questions. She and her staff respond for free.
“There are no silly questions,” he said. The office can also be a link between consumers and insurance companies, he said, reaching companies directly when consumers do not receive answers.
Pelletier said his office rarely receives questions about gap insurance, but that it is always important that people read the small print and ask questions.
“It’s the language,” he said about some policies. “Sometimes it is not a simple language.”
Ensures not regulated directly by the province
The insurance in New Brunswick is regulated by the Commission of Financial Services and Consumers, which gives a license to the dealers who distribute insurance products, as well as the insurers who subscribe the policies.
The Commission confirmed that Aguncerway is classified as an external administrator, which is described as a service provider that goes between a concessionaire and the real insurance company that subscribes the policy.
“And in the case of a claim, the external administrator would do the administrative work,” he said, adding that the paperwork would show a client that the insurance company subscribes the policy.
Third -party administrators are not regulated by the commission, Sollows said, but the dealers who offer insurance products such as GAP insurance must have a license.
The commission confirmed that Kaat Auto is licensed to sell insurance.
When asked if the fact that third -party administrators are not regulated establish an escape so that consumers are exploited, Sollows refused to respond.
In an email statement, another commission spokesman, Morgan Daye, said that consumers who buy third -party administrators still have a potential resource through the commission.
“The commission has the power to intervene with the subscription insurer and with the representative who sells the product,” Daye wrote.
Daye also confirmed that 127 dealers in New Brunswick are licensed to sell gap insurance.
Nowhere in the Assureway website says that the company is a third -party administrator. Nor is another insurance company mentioned that subscribes the policies.
“There are no smoke and mirrors … just a true coverage that simply works!” The website says.
BC does not allow dealers to sell gap insurance
While Anderson is waiting for an Assureway decision, if he had lived in British Columbia, his rules would have saved her from the situation she faces in New Brunswick.
Melinda Lau, spokesman for the British Columbia Insurance Council, confirmed that the province has not allowed car dealers to sell gap insurance since 2017.
“GAP products are considered complex insurance products and must be sold by a qualified and licensed general insurance agent,” Lau wrote in an email statement.
Concessionaires are only eligible for insurance licenses that are “in limited scope” and do not have the same educational requirements as complete insurance licenses, he said.
“The Insurance Council is the opinion that it would not be of public interest for dealers with limited licenses to offer complex insurance products to consumers.”
Lau continued to say that BC does not issue full insurance licenses for car dealers because “a possible conflict of interest” could present. “
CBC News has asked the New Brunswick Finance Department, which supervises insurance, if the province would consider a policy similar to British columbia.
The department directed questions to the commission. Spokesman Morgan Daye said that the province recently updated the requirements for car dealers who sell insurance, which requires “knowing and providing sufficient information to help consumers make informed decisions.”
