Can you temporarily add someone to your car insurance policy?
Absolutely. Whenever you have the need, you may contact your insurance company or agent to ask that someone be temporarily added to your policy. However, it’s not always necessary to do so.
Let’s say you have a close relative over for the holidays and you plan on letting them borrow your car – in this case, there is no reason for you to add this person to your policy, as your policy will already cover this person when they borrow your car (with your permission).
Even if you have a close relative that will be staying with you for an extended period of time (say three months), if that person is only going to use your car infrequently then you probably do not need to bother contacting your auto insurance company to get them on your insurance policy.
In proceeding two instances, you’ll notice that we used a “close relative” in the examples – this is an important distinction, as extended family is usually considered covered in most cases when using your vehicle. The rules, however, are a bit stricter if we’re talking about a non-relative that will be using your car.
For example, if you are hosting an exchange student for the summer and they will be using your car, most likely your auto insurance provider will want that person temporarily added to your policy.
If, however, a non-relative will be using your car frequently over an extended period of time (whether or not that person resides with you) temporarily adding them to your policy will probably not satisfy your auto insurance company – they will want that person added as a permanent driver on your policy. A good example of this would be if you have a nanny or caretaker that will often be using your car to go shopping or pick up your children from school. In this case, this person will need be accounted for on your annual policy.
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