Ahhhhh....deep breath. Thank you all for your wisdom and replies! I'm going to look into the companies you suggested as we still have time to change before our old coverage expires. Now that I'm calmer (!), I think I wouldn't have hit the ceiling if yesterday's email from Esurance had included a statement like: "Please note: if this vehicle was purchased within the past XX days, please confirm that the registration has been updated to reflect your ownership" or something to that effect. I simply opened the email and was blasted with the notice that they'd found something that we'd apparently hid from them, and my interpretation of that was that it was slamming our ethics. I'm not saying that very well, but you get my drift. I also find it terribly creepy that they put the full name of a stranger in our email. When we purchased the truck last week from a long-standing reputable dealer, never in any paperwork was the previous owner's name listed. Frankly, we're buying a used truck, and the previous owner's name is none of our business. So that email on top of the previous one that claimed we'd provided inaccurate information about a gap in our coverage on top of our current insurance agent's genial incompetence on several occasions (not that his incompetence had anything to do with Esurance!) was enough to send me around the bend. We have excellent credit and a clean driving record other than a deer hit at the end of 2009 (the deer hit last fall didn't count against us since no insurance was paid out) so this should be SO simple. Thank you all again. I'm off to do some internet research! You guys are the best!

Sorry that you've had this hassle to cope with, apart from the expense. Around here, we have no fault insurance. When I was in an accident and not judged at fault, my insurance paid for the write-off of my old car ('93 Ford Taurus). Paid me about what I'd bought it for, about 6 mos. previously. When I (evidently) ran the red light, as I was found to be at fault and ticketed, there was no compensation ... I had to suffer the loss of my car. Actually, I fixed it, at larger cost than it had cost me to buy it, about 6 mos. earlier, as it appeared, at about 120,000 mi., to have potentially quite a few good miles left in it and it seemed a waste to scrap it, though it was close to 20 years old. It costs a great deal of precious energy, plus adds to not only pollution but to global warming as well to build a new car for me (or the portion of its life that I'd use in an older model). Even if she had insurance, if she had no driver's licence, they likely would not have covered, in any event. The owner of the car had responsibility to ensure that only licensed drivers drove it - apart from it being stolen. When my friend the milk man wanted to go on holiday, with his son to drive the route, son had to upgrade driver's licence from, supposedly, permission to drive truck to one with air brakes. There was ice in the home when I visited, as it appeared that the son had only licence to drive a car, the Dad had given him the devil, the Mom was angry at Dad for hurting her son's feelings ... and found it hard to get her head around the fact that every time the son drove that truck out the lane unaccompanied by a properly licensed driver, he put at risk everything that they owned ... as the insurance company would not have covered any trouble. Actually ... I upgraded my truck licence to coverage for air brake and rode around sitting beside the son as he did the driving, or I drove the truck myself. ole joyful

I've seen major differences, too. We insured with Allstate for 30 years. For our cars and our home. During that whole time, we had our pick-up broken into twice, we hit a deer once, someone pulled out in front of me and I hit her van (her insurance paid) and someone broke into our garage and then stole CD's out of my car. No tickets though. When our kids were teenagers, they made us insure ALL our cars for them driving them, even though there was NO WAY they were going to be allowed to drive anything but the used car we bought for them to share. It was quite expensive. Our son got several tickets and every time he did, all our insurance premiums went up. Then, seven years ago, we bought a house in the next town that is practically a suburb of the city that we lived in, and sold our current house. Even though we only paid $68,000 for our new house, Allstate insisted on insuring it for $125,000, and the premiums were huge. We then started shopping around. We found Shelter Insurance which allowed us to insure the new house for the same amount but at a much lower rate. Our car insurance quotes were a lot less too. Of course the kids were long grown up by then. But we had a grandson growing up in our house. When he started driving, I told the agent he had his own vehicle and he was not going to be driving ours. She said, "Fine". His insurance is kind of high, but the vehicle is an older one so that helps. When we left Allstate, after having been with them for thirty years for our house and two cars, do you know no one at Allstate even bothered to even ask why we were cancelling our insurance with them? I guess they didn't need our business any more. The big question that you have to ask, when it comes to insurance, is what their performance is when you need them. For that you'd just about have to ask people who've had that experience. With Allstate, at first it was easy. The adjuster looked at the damage, we got three estimates and then they gave us a check. The last time we had a claim was when we hit that deer. They wanted my husband to drive the car 50 miles to Tulsa for the adjuster to look at it! Can you imagine driving a car with a crumpled hood that wouldn't stay closed, a dangling headlight and who knows what kind of internal damage, 100 miles total? My husband said he'd call the insurance commission, so they made arrangements to look at the car locally. The year we had so much hail, we put in a claim for damage to our concrete patio. There were circular areas about the size of a saucer, where the top layer of the concrete flaked off, but it didn't show up until winter after water had seeped into the fine cracks and then frozen. Our claim was denied, the adjuster said it was "normal wear and tear". I've known people who have insured with smaller companies and then they can't get any service. Sometimes they insist that you use cheap parts for the repair. Buying insurance is getting so complicated. Make sure you're comparing exactly because there are so many variables, and make sure you know what those are and whether you need them all. If you have an older car that's not worth very much, it may not be worth having the part that replaces your vehicle if you wreck it.

Here you must list new drivers in your household immediately. Our insurance agent said if you dont and heaven forbid he is in an accident, whether its his fault or not the insurance company will go back to when he got his license and bill you for the coverage. I don't know if that is actually true or not. Here they do give a small discount if your teen is on the honor roll. I guess they figure they are less likely to get in trouble? Also a discount for taking Defensive Drivers course is given too. As far as being the main driver I am not sure. Our teens were on the policy and were able to drive any of our vehicles with no problems. I don't think they were listed as a "main" driver of any one of them even tho they had their "own" vehicles. Somehow I am thinking its the car itself that is insured for anyone, but of course you pay extra for a teen driver too! LOL You should have him listed as an occasional driver though at least. And just a word to the wise, make sure your ex actually HAS the insurance on the other car! I'd hate for Alex to get in trouble for no insurance.