Is Your Child Still Car Insured After He’s Left Home?
Perhaps the problem is familiar and you can very well visualize the scenario: your child, included in your car insurance while very young, grows and strikes for independence, gets a driving license, leaves home, borrows a car and very promptly proceeds to bang it up a little. Problem: he cannot afford the repairs and goes to you for help. Does your car insurance still cover the damage?
When the kid was still living with you, he is naturally included in the car insurance policy issued to you as ‘family member’. Each insurance provider has its own definition of the term ‘family member’, though it generally refers to anyone ‘related by consanguinity, affinity, or adoption to the first named insured residing with him’. Consanguinity means ‘by blood’ and affinity is ‘by marriage’ so any one even remotely related to the insured and residing in the same domicile, may be considered ‘family member’ and is likewise covered by the insurance policy. Coverage extends over ‘ownership, maintenance and use of any automobile’.
Some policies even include non-relatives who live with the family in the same residence as ‘family member’. This is of course very advantageous to the Rotary Exchange student who is still awed by being able to drive a car in good old US of A, and to the host family who need not purchase a separate car insurance coverage for the visitor. But this proviso applies only as long he lives with the primary insured at the insured’s residence.
Going back to the problem of your kid: Is he still covered by the insurance policy?
While the general definition provides that the child should live with the parent who is the primary insured, affirmed by a 1975 California court case of a similar problem, there are exceptions. Court case precedents exist where a college student living in the campus dormitory, though away from the residence still derives support from his parents and thus is still a part of the family household. He remains a resident of the parental home, though temporarily away to college. Ergo: he must be covered by the car insurance policy.
A quaint interpretation even qualifies as ‘family member’ a child who lives with his parents and pays rent to his parents, meaning the child is gainfully employed and should be independent of the parental home, but continues to live there. However, this qualification ends when the child reaches 25 years of age.
These interpretations differ from the California court case in that in the California case, the offspring though draws support for the parents, lives in an apartment away from the parental residence even if on the same street. By living apart, the child becomes a family member not in residence, and therefore violates the second provision of the definition in the car insurance policy. He therefore cannot be covered by the car insurance policy.
The difference lies in the ‘residence’ qualifier. A son away on college remains a part of the family and parental residence: he is ‘at home’ when he is back from college and with his parents, and therefore ‘home’ still means his parents’ house. He remains a part of the parental household, thus fulfilling the provisions of the insurance policy. The California case involves a family member living apart from the parental household, his ‘home’ not anymore his parent’s house. Thus, though still technically a family member, he is not anymore a member of the household.
When the child permanently breaks away from the household, he becomes unqualified for coverage under the car insurance policy’s definition of ‘family member’. The operative word is ‘permanently’, which means both parents and child do not anymore consider the parent’s house as the primary residence of the child. In this case, a Free Insurance Quotes for a Names Non-Owner (?) car policy can help protect the child for injuries or damage incurred from similar circumstances.
Seomul Evans is a SEO consultant with Dallas Search Engine Optimization Company and an Entrepreneur Blog contributor of Car Insurance articles.
