Insurance question

[davemchine]

Yesterday my daughter's car was rear ended and totaled (no fault of hers and no ticket). Today I discovered that while I have insurance on the car (in my name) the insurance company failed to add my daughter's name to our policy so she is essentially uninsured. The insurance person I spoke with said she would "get back to me." Do you think they will reimburse me for the car or am I going to be out of luck? I've never been in this situation before.

[cbelt3]

YMMV, It's state dependent, etc. I was once rear ended by a young lady driving a borrowed car. The car's insurance paid. The young lady ? She went to the police station, because she wasn't insured. It was weird.

[bobinmurphy]

I'm guessing the accident will be the fault of the guy who hit her and his (or her) insurance company will be paying the damages. Your insurance company shouldn't have anything to pay. BUT if the other driver wasn't insured then it would be covered by your insurance company under the uninsured motorist clause, AND they may not want to pay because your vehicle's driver wasn't listed. However, if your daughter isn't a regular driver of that vehicle and it was just loaned to her then your policy should cover things. It's not unlike loaning your car to your neighbor on occasion - you're covered even though he's not listed as a driver.

The man reason for listing your kids on the policy is if they regularly use the vehicle. Not sure what the rules are, but I think they should be listed if they live with you in your house.

[davemchine]

It’s her daily driver.

[DeusxMac]

davemchine wrote:
...the insurance company failed to add my daughter's name to our policy...

Did you inform them when she started driving the car and tell them to add her to your policy?

Did you not notice her name was missing when you received your statements or coverage documents?

Did you not notice there was no corresponding increase in your premiums when she was to have been added to your coverage?

[Racer X]

Dave, was this in Washington State? If so, it is 99% of the time the fault of the rear ender. They get to buy the new car, not you. Your/your daughter's insurance isn't relevant.

[davemchine]

I just got off the phone with my insurance company and they said the coverage I have on the car will be adequate and it isn't an issue that my daughter was uninsured while driving it. They added her to our policy immediately. Whew. Such a huge burden is lifted.

DeusxMac, I did ask my insurance company to add my daughter to our policy but of course I have no proof of that. At the same time we combined all of our different insurance policies into an umbrella policy so it wasn't as obvious that we weren't being charged as it otherwise would have been. Ultimately you are right that it was my responsibility to review the coverage documents and insure they were correct and I failed to do that. Lesson learned.

[Gareth]

davemchine wrote:
It’s her daily driver.

But whose name is on the car title and does your daughter live with you? See where I'm going with this? If the car is in your name and your daughter is out of the house, who's to say, she wasn't visiting and borrowing the car?

Anyway, that's how my mind works, but glad it all got sorted out!

[C(-)ris]

Worst case, if they had said you were out of luck and she wasn't insured you could still go after the other driver directly without involving your insurance company. Definitely would be more of a hassle, but I've done it twice when I had high deductibles to save some money. That way instead of getting the payout of the car minus my high deductible I get the entire payout by keeping my insurance company out of it.

Both situations were cut and dry from my perspective (the other party was arrested in both cases(drunk drivers) so there wasn't any argument from their insurance companies on fault. Both of them settled very quickly vs dragging it out and having me appear in court against their client at their DWI hearings and giving impact statements.

[space-time]

sorry to heard this. You said in a different post that you had TWO cars totaled in the past few days. Hope everyone is OK and you get the settlement to replace the cars.