TImely submissions and MVAIC - a real problem

Bronx Expert Radiology, P.C. v Motor Veh. Acciden Indem. Corp.
2009 NYSlipOp 50621(U)(App. Term 1st Dept. 2009)

"Defendant's motion for summary judgment should have been granted. Even assuming that plaintiff's submission of the claims for no-fault benefits to Seminole Casualty Insurance Company was inadvertent and justified plaintiff's initial delay in submitting the claims to defendant (see 11 NYCRR 65-3.5[l]), plaintiff has failed to provide a "reasonable justification" for the six-month delay between the date it was apprised of Seminole Casualty's denial of benefits and its submission of the claims to defendant"

The 45-day rule and MVAIC.

It seems a little disconcerting that an agency that our tax dollars supports plays by its own set of rules and appears to be exempt from paying no-fault claims, by operation of law. A scenario that seems to play out here is that MVAIC first declares that you must demonstrate through affidavits that you were not covered by any other source of insurance. This is what we can call the condition-precedent to coverage we see so much of in the decisional law from the Appellate Term, Second Department.

Admittedly, sometimes the condition precedent for being eligible for MVAIC is obvious. Examples of this include when a New York pedestrian, who has no other source of coverage, is run-down by a hit and run vehicle, or where a passenger in an uninsured vehicle who does not have other sources of coverage seeks coverage from MVAIC.

More often, I suspect there are issues as to the possible existence of other sources of coverage, or issues involving whether a policy of insurance may be canceled or ever existed. These are issues that need to be investigated and may take time to sort out.

In many of the above instances, I would think that by the time you sort out whether or not an injured person is qualified, the 45-day time period to submit bills to MVAIC has expired.

Yet, the Courts then come back and say that you did not act diligently enough in demonstrating a reasonable excuse for your late submission. In my survey of all 45-day rule appellate cases, I have yet to find a court that has held that a late submission was excusable. This says a lot, I think. I believe there needs to be special time frames set forth in the MVAIC scenario.