Permissive Driver Issue

Permissive Driver Issue

QUESTION:

                We have a situation where a 16-year-old boy was driving his 16-year-old girlfriend’s vehicle with her permission. They were at school and he asked to borrow it to run to the gas station for a soda. She told him that as long as he put gasoline in it, he could. As he was leaving the gas station, he ran a red light and collided with out insured. He was deemed 100% at fault.

                The boyfriend driver has driven that particular vehicle on a few occasions (approximately 4-5 times). When he was driving it one time, the girlfriend’s mother saw him and told him he was not to be driving the vehicle. On another occasion, both the girlfriend’s mother and father told both the kids that the boyfriend was not to be driving the vehicle. This vehicle is exclusively used by the girlfriend, but registered under the parents’ name.

                Again, on this particular day, the girlfriend gave the keys to her boyfriend and told him he could borrow her vehicle. The insurance carrier for the owner of the vehicle (girlfriend’s parents) has denied the claim due to non-permissive users. The insurance carrier for the boyfriend (driver) has also denied the claim to the innocent third party insured citing the same exclusion.

                My question is, since the girlfriend is considered an insured under her father’s policy (family member) and she gave permission to the boyfriend to drive the vehicle, would he have a reasonable belief that he could drive it, even when the girlfriend’s mom and dad told him he was not to drive it?

ANSWER:

Even though the girl gave her boyfriend permission to drive the vehicle, he had been told on two separate occasions by the owners/parents that he was not to drive the vehicle; therefore, he had no reasonable belief that he could drive the vehicle. The owner of the vehicle gets to determine who has permission to drive it, even though the normal user of the vehicle may be someone else. In this situation it’s quite clear that the parents did not want him driving the vehicle. They made that clear on more than one occasion. Therefore, there is no coverage for the loss.