NOTIFICATION OF AN INTENTION TO CANCEL AN AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE POLICY IF A QUESTIONNAIRE IS NOT SUBMITTED IS NOT A VALID CANCELLATION, THE POLICY REMAINED IN EFFECT DESPITE THE INSURED’S FAILURE TO SUBMIT THE QUESTIONNAIRE (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined the insurer’s (GEICO’s) purported cancellation of the automobile insurance policy was invalid for two reasons: (1) the notice of cancellation was insufficient; and (2) the reason for the cancellation was not among those allowed by the Insurance Law. GEICO notified the insured (Islam) the policy would be cancelled unless Islam submitted a completed questionnaire by a certain date. Islam did not submit the questionnaire:

“[A] mere expression of a purpose or intention to cancel in the future is not sufficient; that is, it must be one of actual cancellation, not of future conditional cancellation, or of doubtful meaning as to time or purpose” … . The purported cancellation notice reflected a mere intention to cancel in the future if Islam did not provide a completed business use questionnaire.

In any event, cancellation is permitted only upon specified grounds once a covered policy has been in effect for at least 60 days (see Insurance Law § 3425[c][1][A-C]). Insurance Law § 3425(c)(1)(C) requires the “discovery of fraud or material misrepresentation in obtaining the policy or in the presentation of a claim thereunder” to cancel an automobile insurance policy during the required policy period of one year (Insurance Law § 3425[c][1][C]). Here, there is no dispute that the GEICO policy had been in effect for at least 60 days at the time of the purported cancellation. GEICO did not establish that it had discovered any fraud or material misrepresentation committed by Islam; thus, GEICO did not sustain its burden of demonstrating that its notice of cancellation complied with the statutory requirements of Insurance Law § 3425(c)(1) … . Matter of Unitrin Direct Ins. Co. v Barrow, 2020 NY Slip Op 04481, Second Dept 8-12-20