Not everyone who buys an auto insurance policy is a licensed driver. (Photo: iStock)
In many cases, especially with teenage drivers, the person buying a car and obtaining insurance coverage isn't the person who will be driving the car. Do you need to have a license to buy coverage? According to an appellate court in California, in affirming a trial court's decision, an auto insurer had no duty to determine whether an applicant for an insurance policy was a licensed driver before issuing the policy.
|The case
Lucia Gomez alleged that she was injured and her mother killed when the car Gomez was driving was hit by a car being driven by Manuel Ramos.
Thereafter, Gomez sued Alliance United Insurance Company for common law negligence and wrongful death. She asserted that Alliance wrote automobile insurance policies for the “substandard insurance market” and that it had issued an insurance policy to Ramos five days before the accident so that he could purchase his car from a dealership.
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Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].
