Traffic through the lobby of the St. John Insurance offices showed no sign of letting up the morning after the deadline for acquiring mandatory auto insurance. But although employees continued to process applications at a fast clip, not all customers left with their policies in place.
By 11 a.m. Monday, the waiting list of customers numbered 18. Some applicants exited the offices with insurance cards in hand. Others who had applied several days earlier and come back to pick up their cards were not as lucky. An employee who asked to remain unnamed said applications from last week were still backed up and that it was only a last-minute change of procedure that was now allowing new arrivals to walk with their cards prepared on the spot.
Supermarket manager Myron Allick waited patiently while the receptionist leafed through hundreds of completed cards in a plastic bin, searching for his, but to no avail.
Charter boat operator Dorothy Muilenburg was a first-time arrival. She said she had avoided the insurance office earlier after hearing about the long waits for service.
Firefighter Ernest Matthias and others stood in the lobby with their applications and checks ready to go. Matthias said he already had insurance on his primary vehicle but needed to extend his coverage to a second family car.
Customers and insurance workers agreed that, for the most part, the application process had gone smoothly through the Sunday midnight deadline. But Esther Ledee, office manager at Topa Insurance, said St. John motorists in one category had been left spinning their wheels.
The problem "was with transfer of registration on vehicles," Ledee said, recounting the experience of some applicants she had spoken with last Wednesday on St. John. She said she had been told that the Motor Vehicles Bureau office in Cruz Bay was closed for the remainder of the week while workers attended a workshop.
A Sgt. Penn who answered the telephone at the Motor Vehicles office on Monday acknowledged the office had been closed for a portion of last week but said any further information on the subject would have to come from Police Commissioner Franz Christian.
