Auto Insurance Claims: stolen veh claim, collision coverage, owners insurance

Question
a vehicle ran a stop sign and hit my veh while towing my boat,the driver said he was driving the car which was loaned to him by his roommate.now that the legal process is underway,the owner says the driver stold the car while he was sleeping.and now the insurance company is refusing coverage.iv been told that the driver has used the veh at other times with the owners concent,but now its a theift.is there any legal way of fighting this? seems to me if they lived at the same residence something just dosent add up.
              thanks,
              Danny

Answer
Hi Danny,

If the vehicle was stolen then the car owners insurance will not pay. The insurance company will have to investigate to determine if what you say is true. If the driver of the car lives with the car owner, then he is considered to have "regular access" to the vehicle, especially if he has been fiven permission to drive the car before. This would be called "assumed consent". Since the driver was given permission to drive before then he assumed it was ok to to drive it again.

You just need to keep pushing the insurance company to dig deeper. If they do not make a decision within say 30 days, you may need to hire an attorney to file suit against the driver and owner. Or if you have collision coverage, you could turn it over to your insurance company and let them deal with it.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh