Can I Drive an Uninsured Car with My Insurance?

Normally, standard auto insurance policies provide liability only coverage when the policyholder causes an accident when driving someone else’s uninsured car. You buy coverage for a particular automobile but often this coverage extends to other vehicles you may drive under certain circumstances. With a current car insurance policy, insured drivers (policyholders) can drive an auto with unknown insurance status, a rental car, replacement car when theirs is in a body shop after an accident and an automobile they just bought.

Driving Someone Else’s Car

Under standard terms, your current policy would automatically cover a new auto “you” just bought for several days to allow time to make alternative arrangements for it. But, it would only offer Liability protection when you crash someone else’s vehicle and wouldn’t include damages to the car you were operating. It is the owners’ responsibility to insure vehicles and if they didn’t they would stand to lose, as they would have to pay for repairs out of pocket no matter who was in charge at the time.

Normally you don’t have interest in another person’s auto. That is why your insurance would not pay for the damages to the car itself. It would only provide secondary liability coverage for third parties. However, you are responsible for a rental automobile while it is in your care and that is why your insurance policy may extend the same coverage you have to it.

In most cases, both the person on the steering wheel and registered keeper would have separate insurance. In such cases, the owner’s policy would always be the primary and the driver’s is secondary for Liability only. In other words, yours will only come into picture if the limits of the primary are exhausted and wouldn’t offer any other protection.

An Insured Person Driving Uninsured Car

The policy you have for your own vehicle may include certain losses incurred while you were using another automobile that wasn’t listed on the schedule. There is no problem on this end so far. Let’s assume for clarity that the other automobile belongs to a private individual who should have arranged its insurance coverage, as required by laws in nearly all states, but didn’t.

In such a case, previously mentioned primary is missing and therefore your policy would take its place to compensate the third party damages and injuries you caused with this particular auto. Simply, it was next in line but suddenly moved to first place in the queue because the space somehow opened up.

Under normal circumstances, it shouldn’t matter that you knew about it or not. If you didn’t know or had no way of knowing the vehicle wasn’t insured you have a better face with your company. However, they may not be happy with you if they find out that you went ahead anyway knowing the position. So, they may pay the claim reluctantly and note that you are a bit of a loose cannon.

The fact of the matter is that an automobile needs to have at least minimum state required Liability vehicle insurance before it can hit the roads. However, it is a matter for the registered keeper to deal with it because he or she may actually get a ticket and the auto may be impounded for not complying with the laws. You still have to prove and argue that you aren’t totally unprotected since they will look at the vehicle’s papers first.

In addition, third parties may sue the owner of the vehicle because he or she is responsible for any accidents that happened in it, regardless of who was operating it. So, he’d better pray that your automobile insurer fully compensates them so that they cannot come after him, as they cannot ask to be paid twice.

So far, we are assuming that your policy doesn’t have special conditions or exclusion like not extending any further than the vehicle listed. It is always best to check because it is getting harder to talk about standard coverage with all the different variants sold in the market. Still there are certain circumstances where it may not provide protection and they are;

  • You cannot expect your policy for another vehicle to cover you driving an uninsured auto you own, unless you just bought it and haven’t had time to contact your insurer. You either have to add this other car to an existing policy or buy another one for it. Remember that what is protected is clearly written on the schedule with license plate number and other details and you know your other car needs insurance.
  • The vehicles owned by people who live in the same address with you aren’t usually considered as someone else’s automobile because you need to be listed on their policies and you need to know more about their status. “I didn’t know” doesn’t cut it any more with a member of the household.

So far, we have been talking about Liability only. The damages to the car belonging to someone else aren’t included in any third party automobile insurance policy. The said car must have Collision and Comprehensive coverage, bought specifically for it by the legal keeper, before any claim can be submitted for damages, regardless of who was in charge.

The only exception is rental cars. Under typical circumstances, if you have full vehicle insurance coverage it would extend fully to automobiles that were rented “to you” since you are legally responsible for them (not the keeper). However, motorists need to be sensible about it because there are conditions to it like it must be rented for personal use and it cannot be an automobile which is much more expensive and faster than yours.

Initially, lending or borrowing a car may appear to be a simple favor. But it can have far reaching consequences following an accident. Therefore, it is best that both parties are aware of the position because the law doesn’t usually accept silly excuses in the lines of “I didn’t know”. You have to know if you have coverage in place or not whenever you take a vehicle out for a spin, no matter whom it belongs to or you must have an insurance policy that extends to a borrowed vehicle.