On Jul 20, 2:00*pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:
I'm going to be renting a car for a family vacation. I am trying to
find the cheapest way to add my wife and 2 sons as operators and
ensure that our private insurance will cover any accidents regardless
of who is driving.

In order to add 3 Additional Authorized Operators (AAO), the rental
company wants an extra $24/day for the 10 day trip, and that's with a
considerable discount.

I asked my insurance company what would would happen if I didn't add
them to the contract and one of them was involved in an accident. *The
answer was:

"Well that is a hypothetical situation that I can not answer directly.
All I can say is that from a policy perspective they would be covered,
but from a legal perspective they might not be."

That was the best that I could get out of her since it was a
"hypothetical situation".

So I called the rental agency and ran it by them. The rental agent was
a bit more forthcoming.

"Your auto insurance policy coverage extends to any operator that you
authorize to operate a covered vehicle and your coverage also extends
to rental vehicles. Therefore, if you authorize someone to operate the
rental vehicle, they would be covered by your insurance.

However, in a worst case scenario, if an operator who is not listed as
an AAO with the rental agency has an accident, the rental agency has
the option to consider the contract null and void, which essentially
turns the vehicle into a stolen car. Since it would no longer be a
rental vehicle, but technically a vehicle involved in a crime, it
might not be covered by your policy."

He did mention that something like that has not happened, to his
knowledge, in a long, long time, but in a worst case scenario, it
could. He added that, hypothetically, it was up to me if I wanted to
take that chance.

What a crock, but I guess the rental companies have
to dream up something to try to force you to add additional drivers.
If it's a "crime" they would have to
report it to the police. If they are truthful and report
the actual facts, there is no way any police dept is going
to consider that a "stolen" car and pursue charges.

There must be plenty of instances of folks letting someone else drive
that was not "authorized" that
got into an accident. How you would find them so
you could see what happens, I don't know.

My best guess is that if you are NOT relying on the
car company for either liability insurance or collision
insurance and you have a policy that covers your
family for any cars they drive, that it's not going to
matter. except in some possibly extreme cases.
For example, if the driver not on the contract kills
a bus load of nuns, it exceeds your policy limit,
they sue the rental company and you, the rental
company might be off the hook. But then I would
think they are pretty much off the hook anyway,
unless they committed some negligence in relation
to what they did.

Now if you took out insurance with the rental company
and then allowed someone not on the contract to drive,
I would expect they may say the insurance does not
cover that driver and loss.