QuestionI am a student living with my girlfriend. She owns a car and I do not. When getting insurance for her car, she asked if I needed to be included on the policy and they said no.
Several months ago I got into an accident driving her car that was my fault (I missed a red light and got hit from the side). After the incident, the insurance company (state farm) said they needed to add me to the policy, after which the insurance rate went up and they told us that they would cancel the policy at the end of the term.
I figured that she could get insurance from another company and not include me on the policy as I will not be driving her car for the foreseeable future. Today she attempted to do this with Nationwide and they told her that she needed to provide my drivers information since we are living together and I don't have my own auto insurance, before they would give the policy. As such, when they received this information the policy rate doubled.
It seems to me that since State Farm didn't require my information before the accident, there should be no reason that Nationwide should need my information. We are not married or legally entangled in anyway, we have the same legal status as roommates would. Plus, I'm not going to be driving her car anymore. If she was living with ten uninsured roommates, would Nationwide need the drivers history of all of them too?
Is this just a policy of Nationwide? If she shops around to other companies, will they need my information too?
AnswerHi Cliff,
The information originally given by State Farm was wrong. Virtually all insurance companies require that all persons over the age of 16 living in the same household be listed on the policy. The insurance company will then rate the policy based on the highest risk driver in the household. Yes, if there were 10 roommates they would all have to be listed, because it is considered that they all have access to each others cars. In legal terms, if you walk in the house and throw your car keys on the kitchen table, it is as if you have given permission to everyone in the household to take the keys and drive the car. There are some companies that would not require this if the other persons had their own car with their own insurance policy. There are some other companies that may be willing to write a policy that specifically excludes you from the policy. However, if you find one willing to do this, there would be absolutely no coverage if you were ever to drive the vehicle even in an emergency or just to go to the corner store.
The best thing to do is to find an independent insurance agen that represents many companies. Explain in detail what happened and what you are trying to accomplish. They can then check with many companies at once to find the company that will suit your needs. You may need to contact several different independent agents.
I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh
