Hello all,
My question is for a friend. He lives in Fl and auto insurance is becoming more expensive than the automobile. His colleague suggested he and his wife get separate auto policies in their individual names. The reason being asset protection. If one or the other has an accident the other party can only come for the assets of the individual insured. Anybody here of such?
Methinks your friend has bad information. Asset ownership is not determined by an insurance policy. It is determined in other ways such as a deed, title, registration or sales receipt.
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Thank you! My thoughts exactly!
If they are concerned enough for that to be a thought, they should instead consider an umbrella policy. Which is for exactly that circumstance.
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I believe that joint liability for an accident is most likely to be determined by the law of agency. If the wife asked the husband to pick something up from the grocery store on the way home then the wife becomes the principal in an agency relationship because she commissioned the trip to the grocery store and is the benefactor.
That’s the reason that in the standard automobile policy the insured prty is defined generally as follows:
- The person whose name appears in the policy declarations.
- His or her spouse
- Any resident member of the family.
- Any person driving the vehicle with the insured’s permission.
- Any person or party who is liable for the actions of the driver because an agency relationship between parties.
A common example of an insured agency relationship is between the driver and the driver’s employer.
In the end, the only thing auto liability insurance buys you is the assurance that you’ll get a lawyer defending the interests of the insurance company. And when the costs of defending you equals the max coverage you paid for you’re on your own and except for your abode, all your assets are at risk.