Smart Auto Insurance Blog

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that Geico car insurance must pay for damage and injuries from a rental car crash, even though the driver was not their insured.  Geico argued that they were not liable for the coverage because the person driving was not an authorized driver under the rental contract.  But after all was said and done through multiple courts, Geico lost the battle.  Since the driver who got in the car accident was authorized by another driver who was authorized by the insured driver, that trumps the fact that their name was not on the rental car contract.

Insurance Journal’s article, “Insurer Must Pay for Florida Rental Car Crash by Unauthorized Driver,” shows that car insurance quotes which cover any authorized driver on your vehicle include rental cars.  The rented car was a “temporary substitute auto” for the insured driver, so those authorized to drive the vehicle are covered in the case of an accident.  This trumps the fact that the insured driver was the only one authorized by the actual rental car company.  Sadly, the reason for all of this litigation is that minors were badly injured in the car crash and one passenger lost their life.  Be sure to know the details of your car insurance policy if you are authorizing someone else to driver your vehicle.

Written by Sara Smart

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An article by Kenneth J. St. Onge in the Insurance Journal says that Esurance auto insurance has filed to obtain a foreign company license, the first step in being able to sell Massachusetts auto insurance. The insurer is following Geico and Progressive who have also decided to enter the state’s market, a year after deregulation of the industry. Like those companies, Esurance sells auto insurance policies directly to the consumer through the Internet.

Despite this indicator, Kenneth stresses that the auto insurance company states that they have no plans to enter the Massachusetts market any time soon. For one thing, they have not yet filed a rate plan; such an outline of the auto insurance rates they plan to charge is mandatory to sell insurance in the state.