In New Jersey state law requires that any registered vehicle be covered by an insurance policy.

The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance (NJDOBI) notes that if you take your vehicle off the road because it is not operational or you are not using it like yourself when you thought you would sell it, you must surrender your license plates to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission in order not to be required to have insurance coverage in place.

Keep in mind that a driver like yourself who incurs a lapse in coverage, due to canceling your policy on the vehicle, could end up paying far more for insurance when you reinstate coverage. Also even if you were going to sell your car normally you would need to keep insurance on it until it was sold. If a person was test driving your car they could only do so legally if there was insurance on the vehicle. Also if you would be personally responsible as the car owner if there was an accident when a person test drove the vehicle and you have already taken insurance off of the car.

So if you want to keep insurance off of the car then according to NJ laws you would need to turn in your plates. If you want to keep the car registered and use it once again you will need to obtain at least NJ minimum auto insurance. To the best of our knowledge once you get insurance back on the car you should be able to use the tags you took off of it, as long as their registration is still good and is associated with this car. For specific answers with regards to your plates, you should contact the NJ MVC.

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