We often received phone calls from our customers asking some form of the following: If I allow ‘so and so’ to drive my car, are they covered under my insurance or their insurance.
How to find out….
In your auto insurance policy is a definitions section. In the definitions section, the policy will outline who is an insured person. It’s important to note here that not every policy is the same. You’ll need to doublecheck your own policy, but typically an auto insurance policy in Florida will define a insured person as:
…you, any resident relatives, any person listed as a driver on your policy declarations page, and any other person if their use of your auto is with your express or implied permission.
That last part of the definition is saying that if you give permission for someone to drive your car, you may also be allowing them to use your insurance. This means that if they wreck your car it’s your insurance that will most likely pay for the damages, it’s your insurance that will see the increased rates, and it’s you who will be responsible for the deductible.
That’s not all…
It only gets worse from there – there’s actually a Florida Statute that says the owner of a motor vehicle who loans their vehicle to any permissive user shall be liable for the operation of the vehicle or the acts of the operator. While the statute does set caps on liability, the cap is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This means that if you give permission for someone to drive your car and they wreck it….you may be on the hook.
So what should you do….
The best course of action is to not let anybody drive your car. However, if you do allow someone to drive your car you may want to first consider raising your liability limits….then hope for the best.
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