Draw by timeout vs insufficient material?

I got a message that the game was a Draw (Timeout vs insufficient material) - I dont understand, I had time remaining and 5 pawns, they only had their King remaining. I could hav easily won woth pawn promotion or mating with a pawn triangle - why was it a draw!!!???

Were you the one that ran out of time?  It would be a draw then.  He has just a king, your clock expires.  Draw.

As someone else mentioned, the mechanism here is closest in line to USCF, though not exact as it has no incorporation of forced mate.

See the 2 diagrams below, both with Black to move and Black's clock running out.  The first is a win for White in FIDE and USCF, a draw here.

The second, unless USCF fixed the rule, which I doubt, is a Draw in FIDE and a win for White here or USCF.

The second one would also be a draw in USCF as long as the TD (arbiter) reads 14D4 and sees that White has no legal moves leading to checkmate.  Weaker TDs may not understand that and may have been missing that rule for decades.

14D4. No legal moves leading to checkmate by opponent.
There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent. 

PS  A flag falling in the following position would be a draw in FIDE and USCF and a loss on chess.com:  White Ke1, Pa4, Pd4, Pg4; Black Ke8, Pa5, Pd5, Pg5.  Neither king can get past the pawns but Chess.com simply looks to see if the unflagged player's army is enough to helpmate a lone king.

The idea of having clocks and each player getting the same amount of time is to make things even, so one player can't take two days over a move. It is not, primarily, to turn chess into a farce where a win is impossible but each player makes meaningless moves, as fast as they can, to try to win on time. If someone did that over the board, no decent player would ever agree to play them again and they would be forever stuck in a corner somewhere, playing someone else who had the same idea. I've seen it happen for ten years.

AS i said, I had time left on clock - they ran out. I had 5 pawns left and a king, they only had a king and were not in check or in stalemate position.

About the only two things I can think of are below (there may also be something I can't think of):

1) a glitch that needs to be reported to the site

2) a disconnection or lag that didn't show your time expiring

a link to the game might help somebody more tech savvy than me to determine what happened.

You ran out of time: https://www.chess.com/game/live/61133463993

Now, that may have been due to a disconnect from the live server process or actually on time. If your opponent would have had a pawn, or other sufficient material, it would have been a time loss.

Looking at the time stamps (5/0 time control), 

After move 36 White had 20 seconds vs Black's 32 seconds

Move 37 had White 06.5 vs 32

38:  04.2 vs 28

39:  03.3 vs 28

40:  02.2 vs 26

41:  01.5 vs 25

40:  00.4 vs 25

and then white flagged.

This just happened to me too. I had a king, bishop and rook and he only had a king with 30 seconds left on the click to my 1:30 and I accidentally moved my rook into a position he could capture it cause I was only focused on not making it a cats game while letting the clock wind down. It was a first for me too. So annoying, but at least I learned something new. 

premove = solution

i agree with imketo. you ran out of time, and you have like for example: a queen, and the other opponent for example has a : king, you cannot mate with a king! but now if you have the opponent timed out, how is he supposed to play??? so you are left with a king and a static queen and you cannot mate your opponent.

In my opinion once you have run out of time you automatically have lost all material because you cannot make a move!! If your opponent has a King and time on their clock that seems to be an automatic victory in logical terms....the argument that there is not enough material to mate is moot because my opponent is unable to move and is essentially in check mate by the clock. 

If it's impossible to checkmate, given infinite time, then it shouldn't be considered a win.

I just got a draw in this way and feel kinda lucky. I ran out of time but am certain that without the clock I would have converted a pawn.

I just encountered a Draw "insufficient material" when I feel like I should have won on time-out. I had only my King, but they had a Queen, King and a Pawn. How is that possible insufficient material when queen king end game is a well known end game. Anyone with thoughts, I'd appreciate.  

Please read through the thread.

If you are still uncertain after doing so then please explain how the lone king could somehow checkmate the other player.

I wrote my response at 3 AM when my bladder woke me up but I still say you should read the thread.  It also gives examples and explains why chess.com would declare time-out draws in positions that FIDE/USCF would call time-out wins and why chess.com would declare time-out wins in positions that FIDE/USCF would call draws.  Page 4 has examples of those explanations that have been repeated multiple times.

i agree its a stupid rule. if you run out of time you should lose, it's that simple .

unfortunately fide doesn't consult me on these things... they definitely should...