Who's responsible for an error on insurance forms?

Answer

This is a strange situation, because almost all automobile insurance policies carry a grace period of at least 15 days (usually it's thirty) for adding a new vehicle. And, in your case, it's a replacement vehicle, so it's not like you're trying to insure two vehicles for the price of one.

Unless your policy expired or was cancelled -- or unless it has something to do with your vehicle being a lease -- I can't imagine why your carrier would deny coverage.

It's unlikely you have any recourse against the dealer, who would (rightly) assume the coverage had been transferred. You need to dig deeper with your own insurance and find out just why they denied coverage, as well as ask for a copy of your policy and get your carrier to quote the specific language on which their denial is based.

If you can't discover any reason in your policy why they would deny, this would certainly be a matter to bring up with your state's division of insurance (usually locatable on the web or in the blue pages of your phone book). Most divisions of insurance are fairly powerless unless they discover an insurance company has contravened a provision in a first-party policy, at which time they can help you quite a bit (including fining your carrier).