A Florida Woman Cashed the Insurance Check on Her Stolen 1992 Mercedes. 30-Plus Years Later, Its Canal Tow Bill Blocked Her Tag Renewal

Jan Schill parked her 1992 Mercedes 300 Diesel in her South Florida driveway more than 30 years ago, WSVN 7News reported , and by the next day it was gone. She filed an insurance claim, signed the title over to her insurer and took the check. In 2025, a sheriff's office called to say the car she had nicknamed "Trip" had been found at the bottom of a canal.

The bill showed up at the tag office. Months after that call, Schill went to renew her tags and learned that the company that had towed the car out of the canal had put a lien on her. Her response, as she described it to WSVN, was that the Mercedes was not hers anymore: she had signed it over to her insurance company.

WSVN consumer expert Howard Finkelstein told viewers the insurer was responsible for the tow fee because it had declared the car a total loss, paid her and become the owner. After the station contacted the insurer, the company paid the tow company the same week, the lien came off and Schill renewed her tags. She told the station things moved within 24 hours. WSVN did not name the insurer, the tow company or the sheriff's office, did not say which county the canal is in and did not report the lien amount. The Auto Wire could not confirm any of them from other sources.

Whose name the tow notice goes to

Florida's towing-lien law, section 713.78 , gives a tow operator a lien on a vehicle it removes at the direction of a law enforcement agency, among other situations. It requires the operator to send notice by certified mail to the registered owner and the insurer within five business days of storing the vehicle. The statute says registered owner, which means whoever the state's records say it is. If the insurer took the paper title but the change never reached the state's file, a notice and a bill would go to the old name. WSVN did not report what the state record showed in Schill's case, but a lien that reached her tag suggests it still listed her.

The same section lets the owner, the insurer or another lienholder challenge the charges in court, or post a bond to get the vehicle released, and a judge may award fees and costs to the winner. None of that was reported here.

How a tow bill can stop a tag renewal

Florida has a second tool for vehicles an agency removes as abandoned. Under section 705.103 , an owner who does not remove the vehicle after notice owes the agency its removal and storage costs, and a person who neglects or refuses to pay "is not entitled to be issued a certificate of registration" for that vehicle or any other until the costs are paid. The agency sends the state a list of people barred from registering. WSVN did not say which provision the tow company or the sheriff's office relied on, so this is the mechanism Florida law offers for turning a tow bill into a registration problem, not a finding about Schill's case.

What a theft payout obliges the insurer to file

Under section 319.30 , a vehicle is a total loss when the insurer pays the owner after a theft. As the statute reads now, the insurer must obtain the certificate of title, make the required report to the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System and send the title to the state within 72 hours of receiving it. If it cannot get a properly assigned title, it may ask the state for a salvage certificate 30 days after paying the claim, after it has released or paid off any lienholder and attested on a state form to its attempts to obtain the title.

That is today's text. WSVN did not say what rules applied three decades ago or whether the insurer ever made its filing. Finkelstein's advice to viewers was to ask the insurer for proof that it notified the DMV of the ownership change after a total loss.

Other cars, other paperwork messes

Schill's case resembles others that turned on whose name sat on a record. In California, a 17-year-old says a DMV clerk told him his Mercedes-AMG had no lien before a tow company said Carvana ordered it repossessed. In Ohio, a used Mercedes bought from a Cleveland dealer was repossessed from its buyer over someone else's loan. And in California, repo men towed a paid-off Mercedes-Benz S500 in a mix-up that drew a police investigation.

WSVN reported no court filing, so there is no hearing or deadline to follow. The lien is gone. The insurer's check went to the tow company, and nobody has said for how much. Whatever caused the gap here, the structure is the problem for owners: the payout happens at your table, but the filing that takes your name off the record happens in the insurer's office, where you cannot see it.

Should Florida require insurers to give a total-loss payee written proof that the title transfer reached the state, or is checking the record the owner's job?

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