Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 3:35 am Post subject: Is my car covered?
My husband and I were married a little over 2 years ago. He kept his car insurance policy/I kept mine with our respective cars covered under our respective policies. Now, we've had an accident in my car when HE was driving. My car is totalled. I had full coverage; will my car be covered even though he was driving? _________________ Register Now to have your Insurance queries solved.
Have you filled out a renewal application since you were married/living together? Most likely not. The renewal application would most likely ask you for your marital status and who is living in your household. If you lied on this renewal application, the carrier could deny you coverage.
If you've not completed any paperwork since you initially obtained the insurance, then you've not lied to the carrier. They never asked you if the people in your household have changed so they would not be able to deny coverage for that misrepresentation (that is, there was no misrepresentation).
Now... your husband may or may not be considered an "insured' under your policy. You own the vehicle so your responsible for it's use. So your carrier will provide _you_ collision and liability insurance. But they _may_ not provide your husband direct coverage as the operator. But it would be extremely unlikely that this would cause any problems.
Lastly, as an adjuster I frowned upon this situation is one person was not insured at all. It meant the people were just getting free coverage and did not want to pay an additional premium for two drivers. Your situation is different... you both are probably paying more individually and you actually have some duplicate coverage. So really your carrier should not be looking to deny coverage.
Again, bottom line is that your not only not trying to scam an insurance company out of "free" coverage but your actually probably paying more then you should be and have duplicate coverage that could lower each carriers exposure.
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:06 am Post subject: Is my car covered?
Thanks! No, I have not filled out a renewal application and was in no way trying to scam the company. Although we've been married over two years, we lived 65 miles apart for the first year and it just seemed most practical to keep separate policies for cars and houses and we simply never combined the car insurance once he finally moved in. Will I need to explain all this to the adjuster and will it be up to the adjuster to "decide" if we were trying to scam the insurance? The only reason it even came up is because the adjuster left me a message today and said something like "I need your husband's name, DOB, and...I don't see him on the policy" which sounded like a red flag to me and I'll worry about all night until I can talk with her during business hours tomorrow morning!
I'd not worry about it too much. Just explain what you mentioned, that you lived in different households for the 1st year and just have not combined the policies at this time. Also be sure to point out that your husband has his own vehicle, listed under his own policy. This will show that your not seeking any coverage that your not already paying for. Again, your actually probably paying more then if you were both listed on the same policy.
Yea i dont think that it wud be any issue even if u were driving or your husband was... coz you were physically present in your car and dat signifies as u r d original owner of d car... its u who have authorised ur husband to drive the car....
no issues so..
sudhirkapata, the OP never stated that she was in the vehicle when her husband was driving. Also, this is not the same as someone loaning their vehicle to someone else to drive. The issue is that the driver of the vehicle lives in the same household as the insured. The insurance application has special sections to address this issue (listing everyone living in your household) and, in certain cases, the actual policy applies coverages differently (exclusions for vehicle available for your regular use).
