The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Mini Money Mustaches => Topic started by: Unicorn on August 17, 2021, 02:50:57 PM
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My high school-aged child has been offered a regular babysitting job for the schoolyear, which would involve her picking up her charge in our family car. Would anyone have any concerns about liability in this situation? I found some information suggesting that in some cases insurance (auto/umbrella) may not cover scenarios in which someone is employed in this way. I will delve into our policies, but just wondering if this is a crazy thing to be concerned about.
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I'd guess many people wouldn't even think about this and don't think it's likely to be an issue, but of course there are worst-case scenarios that would be, well, dreadful (and the financial angle a minor part of that, but still).
I'm sure your insurance agent / policy provider could quickly answer your question, and suggest solutions if one is needed.
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I think I'm more surprised that the parents are willing to have a high schooler regularly driving their child(ren) around. New drivers, by definition, aren't experienced yet. Having a distracting child in the car is a really bad idea. There are states that restrict teen drivers from having their friends in the car for this reason.
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I would definitely check with your insurance.
When we had a nanny, we added her to our policy as an employee, because sometimes she would be driving one of our cars with the kids. Not exactly the same situation, but worth being cautious about. I don't recall the details of how she was added, but it wasn't very expensive. While we never had an issue, I was more comfortable knowing the insurance was there just in case.
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I would also suggest considering asking payment for mileage as it would likely impact insurance and this is for, well, business.
This could also get complicated real fast with workers comp. I'm not 100% sure but I think if driving is part of the job and your kid gets hurt driving there's a good chance you'll have two headaches on your hands. One for liability for passengers and one for worker's comp (driver).
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Thank you for the thoughtful replies! My daughter did not end up taking the job -- because it would not fit into her schedule -- so in the end I did not get to further confirm the details of my policy on this.
We unfortunately live in a place with a large number of appalling and highly aggressive drivers on the road -- and our family was the victim in a pretty bad hit and run accident last year, so I guess that's why I looked at this question from this perspective.