Driving in St. Thomas is like rolling the dice, you really are taking a chance. You may get to…read moreyour destination or may not. With landslides, falling rocks when it rains, crazy rude drivers, tourists that don't remember to stay on the left side of the road, a plethora of pot holes, malfunctioning traffic lights (that the territory doesn't care to fix timely) and drivers that can't seem to stay between two lines, odds are you will get into an accident out here or damage your car. I've driven all over the East Coast in winter storms, and never got into an accident. I've never been in an accident ever period. But here, it only took a month for an impatient driver that wanted to pass another car in oncoming traffic, to swerve into my lane and take out my passenger side mirror.
The point my friends is get good insurance. Insure yourselves as much as possible on this island. We use Family Insurance Agency for our car insurance. Aretha our agent, was just so responsive and amazing in helping us get a quote and then get us through the process of obtaining insurance. Being fast in responses via email is not an easy find on this island and I always got a response from Aretha in a few hours. She definitely operates at stateside speed! We started working with Aretha in January and didn't finalize everything until April. Family Insurance Agency is one of the only insurance companies that could insure our car make and insure it to the extent that we wanted. In addition to that they use Lloyds of London as underwriters, whereas all of the other companies we reached out to were using no name companies.
Their office building is also very nice, with plenty of parking out front. Instructions that we received to get there are typical islands instructions, with "go back past the hospital and it's the second new building," needless to say we got lost getting there, but its located on the road behind the hospital in town. The address listed on google is their old address, so make sure you go to their Royal Palm Office Center location.
One of the strange things about purchasing car insurance in USVI is that you need to purchase a years' worth up front. They don't charge you on a per month basis like stateside, however, Family Insurance Agency, offers a financing plan with an interest rate, but we didn't find out of what that rate was. Make sure you have insurance before your car is ready to clear customs, otherwise it will not leave the docks.
It sucks to spend your hard earned $$ on car insurance, especially to give it all away up front, but I can't tell you of how important it is out here in the wild wild jungle of driving craziness!
