Originally Posted by
MoreMilesPlease
The rule is a Canadian one. There is a special Canadian card that shows your US insurance will cover in Canada and may have something specific that Canada requires.
If your insurance agent said to disregard the Canadian requirement of "their card" then you may want to get another agent. Our agent ask if we would be driving in Canada and was quite happy to provide the card.
Oh, he mailed me one and it's in my glove box. It is a "Canada Non-Resident Inter-Province Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance Card." It is "continuous until cancelled."
I've searched and so far can't find any penalty for
failure to carry one. Remember that Canadian authorities are very used to dealing with American drivers.
I'm usually very conservative about such things, but my advice to the OP still stands that lack of one wouldn't keep me from making one drive into Canada, providing one was carrying proof of US car insurance.
I found one link
here that's as close to official as I've uncovered so far. I lived for many years in Canada close to the US border and now live in the US close to the Canadian border and I've
never heard of any American driver being penalized for failing to carry this card. Failing to be able to show proof of car insurance would be quite another matter.
With more searching, the best I've uncovered is the following post from what looks like a forum for insurance agents
here, containing advice similar to mine:
This post is for the benefit of anyone who may find this thread in the future searching for the answer to the same question I had.
Ultimately, after talking to rental agencies and canadian govertment [sic] officials with customs and the visitor's bureau, the answer seems to be: Yeah, Canada cards are required but noone ever really asks for them, unless they get pulled over or in an accident. So I sent the insured off with a Canada card for his owned vehicle and told him to keep the rental agreement handy. The general consensus among everyone I spoke to was that a good faith effort to prove coverage will satisfy the requirement of carrying proof of insurance.
YMMV.