Author Topic: One car family. How does insurance work?  (Read 2670 times)

themagicman

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One car family. How does insurance work?
« on: October 26, 2015, 07:47:28 AM »
We are planning on buying a new car and going down to a one car family after that. I am curious how car insurance works with a one car family. Would it be advantageous to put the car in my wife's name since she will probably have a lower insurance rate than me? Also would I just be listed as an eligible driver? Would this cover me when I am driving someone else car? Thank you!

nereo

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Re: One car family. How does insurance work?
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2015, 08:13:51 AM »
We are planning on buying a new car and going down to a one car family after that. I am curious how car insurance works with a one car family. Would it be advantageous to put the car in my wife's name since she will probably have a lower insurance rate than me? Also would I just be listed as an eligible driver? Would this cover me when I am driving someone else car? Thank you!

We are both listed as drivers on our one vehicle which is in my name (I bought it before we were even dating 8 years ago).  It really didn't change our insurance rate more than a few dollars/month to list both of us.  Legally I believe you can get into some trouble if you list your wife as a the only/primary driver and it turns out you drive the vehicle >50% of the time.  The insurance company would only find out if there was an expensive accident (think hospitalization/lawsuits) where the non-primary driver was driving.  They would investigate and might find out that you were the de-facto primary driver and could use that to not pay out the full claim.

At least, that's how my ex (who practiced insurance law) explained it to me.

themagicman

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Re: One car family. How does insurance work?
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2015, 08:18:00 AM »
We are planning on buying a new car and going down to a one car family after that. I am curious how car insurance works with a one car family. Would it be advantageous to put the car in my wife's name since she will probably have a lower insurance rate than me? Also would I just be listed as an eligible driver? Would this cover me when I am driving someone else car? Thank you!

We are both listed as drivers on our one vehicle which is in my name (I bought it before we were even dating 8 years ago).  It really didn't change our insurance rate more than a few dollars/month to list both of us.  Legally I believe you can get into some trouble if you list your wife as a the only/primary driver and it turns out you drive the vehicle >50% of the time.  The insurance company would only find out if there was an expensive accident (think hospitalization/lawsuits) where the non-primary driver was driving.  They would investigate and might find out that you were the de-facto primary driver and could use that to not pay out the full claim.

At least, that's how my ex (who practiced insurance law) explained it to me.

Ok thank you! Not worth maybe missing out on a large claim for a few $s a month. I will add both of us! Do you think it matters who the owner of the car is? Do you think our rate would be cheaper or the same with the car being own by my wife vs me?

nereo

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Re: One car family. How does insurance work?
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2015, 08:32:02 AM »

Ok thank you! Not worth maybe missing out on a large claim for a few $s a month. I will add both of us! Do you think it matters who the owner of the car is? Do you think our rate would be cheaper or the same with the car being own by my wife vs me?
AFAIK who owns the car doesn't matter at all - insurance companies only look at the driving record(s) of the insured driver(s).  It's easy enough to get several auto insurance quotes and comparison shop.