by Guest » Thu Jan 12, 2012 04:05 pm
A 16 year old kid drove a car from the opposite lane, head first into my car while I was standing at a red light. My car is totaled and I find out that the car belongs to the kid’s employer who says he didn’t give explicit permission to the kid to drive his car. He is refusing to pay for the damages and his insurance company says he is not liable. The kid of course has no insurance. Is there any way I can claim damages from the other guy’s insurance company?
Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 05:12 pm Post Subject:
You have a few options which you can explore. You file your claim with your insurance company and let them negotiate with the owner of the car. See if they can do anything about it. If your car is totaled and you are covered by Uninsured Motorist’s Insurance (UM/UIM), then the insurance company will compensate you for your loss. The last option is to consult an attorney and see if you can sue the owner for negligence and damages.
Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 02:43 am Post Subject:
I don't know all of the details but 1) It's almost impossible to say the employee was not a permissive driver and 2) as such, any insurance company that would try to deny liability under a situation such as this is probably make a huge error.
Permissive use and the employer not giving permission are two different things. If the employee had ever driven the vehicle in the past and had access to the key, then this is 100% permissive use... any adjuster should know this.
Did the employer file a police report for this _stolen_ vehicle? I'm betting not. Right there his assertion that he did not give permission is moot.
About the only time an owner can claim the driver was not permissive user is when the vehicle was stolen (and a police report confirms this) or they keys were somehow secured and it can be shown that the owner went to great lengths to keep the keys from the employee. As mentioned, once the employer knew the employee took the vehicle then he should have also filed a police report.
If the employee was a permissive user then he is also an insured under most commercial auto policies. If the insurance company provides the owner coverage and denies liability as the vehicle was "stolen" then they are also denying that the driver was a permissive user and are not giving him coverage (the driver _is_ still liable in the accident). This should not a position that the insurance company should treat lightly as now you can sue their insurance (stating that the driver _was_ a permissive user), you can sue the driver (as causing your your loss) and then the driver could file suit against the owners insurance company (stating that he _was_ a permissive user and they should be affording him coverage).
I could go on and on about this but bottom line, if I've see 1000 claims like this, I've only been able to deny liability once... and that was only when the owner filed a police report. The law simply does not allow this to easily be done. If it were allowed, every owner would simply state the driver did not have permission and there the owner would not need to address the loss (keep in mind even is someone has insurance really the owner is held liable and is responsible for making sure the damages are paid).
Here is what I would recommend... contact your states dept of insurance and file a complaint with them. Let them know that you feel the driver _was_ a permissive user as the owner never filed a theft report (if that is correct) and that the driver had access the keys and the vehicle.
As mentioned above, if you have your owner coverage (collision of UMPD) then you can file under your own policy and your carrier can seek recovery.
Another option would be file suit against the owner and driver of the vehicle (both). If the loss is under the small claims court amount, you can file there.
Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 01:14 pm Post Subject:
The owner didn't file a police report. I'm sure of that. I didn't know about permissive use, I'll talk to my insurance company about it, see if they can negotiate with the other guy's insurer. Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it.
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