GAP Insurance

From my understanding of it (which is limited) Gap insurance for homes cover the period of time from when you close on a property and when the title is registered with the county. I don't see how this can assist a homeowners association from collecting fees from a previous owner unless the Association was able to file the lien prior to the title being registered in the new owners name.

As far as I know, gap insurance for homes are available in Many states but needs to be purchased at the same time the property is purchased.

It appears to be an interesting marketing concept but it doesn't appear to be any different then selling the bad debt to a collection agency.

I did additional searching:

That web site was only opened in Nov 2010. Therefore - it's only been up for a year and is owned by Association Financial Services, L.C.

If you look at the contact information for this site it sends mail to a different domain the advansedesgroup.com Advansedesgroup.com was registered on 10 July 2006

The owners of the GAP, the financial services company, registered their site on 24 Aug 2006. However, their contact info goes to another domain name afslc.com

afslc.com was registered at the same time as the financial services company and is owned by the financial services company.

The financial services company is registered in FL. Per the FL Corporations commission site, there are three companies registered with variations of that name. Two of them, Association Financial Services, L.C. and Association Financial Service are owned by the same people.

According to their own paperwork - this company is involved in FINANCIAL, COLLECTION, ACCOUNTING, LENDING,FACTORING SERVICES.

Note: it does not say insurance

Looking further on the GAP web site, they specify that an insurance company is involved in this; the Advanced E&S group. Their web services are provided through web.me.com and I was unable to trace who might own that site. However, since it's a FL corporation, a search showed that the insurance company is actually registered as ADVANCED E & S OF FLORIDA, INC. They were first incorporated in 2002.

Therefore, a logical conclusion is that the GAP company is another collection agency using the abbreviation GAP in their marketing strategy which (I believe) is because they want some individuals to think that they are an insurance company (per your post you thought it was) and not a collection agency. To the companies credit, they plainly state on their home page that they use "collection professionals". They do indicate that an insurance policy is provided by

My advice, RUN, DON'T WALK, RUN AWAY

If you want your Association to collect assessments via collections vs. liens, contact your Associations attorney for advice on the proper procedures the Association must follow. Once those procedures are followed and you want to use the services of a collection agency - shop around. Prices can vary drastically.

If you are really interested in this type of program, I would suggest asking the company for a list of references in your area. Then I would contact the insurance company and find out what their rating is, how long they have been in the insurance market, etc.

Hope this helps,

Tim