18 year old in an accident

by Guest » Wed Jan 05, 2011 02:30 am
Guest

Hello, I trolled around the forums trying to see if I could find an answer to my question, but I found none. Here is my dilemma

I have an 18 year old daughter, in college, not living at home( well she comes over every weekend =) anyway, she lives with a family member and she attends college. She just obtained her driver's license about 6 months ago, needless to say she is still a bad driver. With the help of the family member, who she lives with, she is the owner of a car, not really the owner, since she is not on the title.
A few days ago she was involved in her first accident, rain and lack of experience were the culprits, she rear ended someone. No one was hurt and the damages done to the vehicles were minor, with most of the damage done to my daughter's car.
Here is where it gets hairy, come to find out that she was not insured, the family member insured the car under his name, but she was not in the policy. He asked her to say that she borrows the car and in this particular occasion he asked her to say she took the car without permission. I was livid, all along I am thinking she is paying insurance (that is what she told me, so she either lied or misunderstood) when in fact she is driving uninsured.
Here is my question, What should she do? I told her not to lie, and especially not to say she was driving the car without permission. What is she looking at here? Will the insurance cover her? and what about legal ramifications?

Thanks in advanced

Total Comments: 1

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 04:28 am Post Subject:

First, go over and kick the bonehead who bought the car for her in the side of the head... this person is an idiot.

Your daughter is a permissive user unless she stole the vehicle. Everyone can say she did not have permission but they don't understand what "permission" means legally. As I mentioned, it's either stolen or its "permissive use". Has she ever used the car in the past? Does she ever have access to it? Permissive use.

The person who owns the car will probably have his/her policy either non-renewed or the rates jacked way up with your daughter added into the policy. Rightfully so.

What comes more of a concern is that on some polices your daughter may not be considered an insured. The owners policy will still defend the owner (i.e. pay the claim) but this would leave your daughter hanging in the wind for anyone who wanted to go after her directly. The policies that are not going to consider her an insured are extremely few and far between... but they do exist. I'm just pointing out that it's all fun and games until someone is hurt... then the attorneys take over.

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