My wife and I are responsible people.  We raised two children, both in college now.  We save through a 401K, pay our mortgage, and don’t borrow beyond our means just to buy things or take vacations.

That’s why what we did was pretty shocking to friends and family. What was it?  We borrowed money by using a car title as collateral. It turned out to be our best option.

It began when Linda was in a car accident. She first went to Chesapeake General for the emergency room, then later at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for follow-up treatment. There were six operations, then she had three months of physical therapy, not to mention the medicine cabinet of pharmaceuticals to manage pain and infections.  Linda was a triathlete before the accident, and was not inclined to letting the injuries cripple her for life.  She’s a fighter.  

But some of our biggest battles were with insurance coverage.  She has health insurance coverage at her job.  We thought it was good insurance. She has been with her company for more than 10 years. Her premiums have gone up a lot in the past five years, and she now pay more than 50 percent of those premiums. Her monthly premium costs rose by $150 in the last four years.   

It wasn’t enough.  We had to argue on so many parts of the coverage.  We had to discontinue physical therapy for two months because they determined it wasn’t essential coverage.  Our out-of-pocket costs were $7000!  With her on disability, we couldn’t pay all our bills, so we ended up with bad credit.  After years of faithful, diligent bill paying on cars, house, kids’ tuition – we couldn’t get a bank loan, or an extension from credit card companies or our mortgage bank. To dip into our 401K money would incur huge penalties, as well as losses due to the down stock market. Our children offered to drop out of college, which we wouldn’t accept.

But we own one car outright, and decided to try car title loans. It was a way to buy time – and get fast cash for her physical therapy at a time that was critical for her recovery.  Because of that car title loan, Linda walks better.  I hope someday she can get back to swimming, biking and running, her true love.

Norfolk Car Title Loans was essential because of the timing of her therapy. Later, we were able to negotiate at least partial coverage (that took only three months).   I was relieved we didn’t have to go to some storefront operation – it’s all online, where you spend about 20 minutes on the online application. The money is in your checking account the next day. For anyone else in this situation, get online auto title loans with no credit checks.  It’s what you sometimes have to do to manage health care in our crazy (I say “broken”) healthcare system.

- Dave E.