Auto Insurance Coverage for Leased and Rented Vehicles

A rental car or leasing company may not be required to provide automobile insurance coverage for its renters or lessees during the rental or lease period. Further, an insurer of a renter or lessor can exclude any liability coverage for their customers. The specific provisions of a vehicle rental or lease agreement should be carefully reviewed to decide whether minimum insurance coverage is provided for renters or lessees.

Attorneys Retained by Auto Insurers: Duty to the Insured

When a lawsuit is filed against an automobile insurance company's insured for damages allegedly suffered by a claimant in an automobile accident with the insured, the insurance company has a duty to defend the insured. A part of the insurance company's duty can be the right to retain an attorney for the insured's defense and to pay that attorney's fee. Because the insurance company selects and pays the defense counsel, questions arise regarding who is the attorney's client and whether the attorney owes a duty to only the insured or to both the insured and the insurance company.

Compulsory Auto Insurance Coverage

The costs incidental to motor vehicle accidents, thefts of cars and trucks, and similar vehicle-related occurrences in the United States are immense. In addition to the human costs, consisting of some 40,000 fatalities and hundreds of thousands of injuries annually, the yearly economic cost of such incidents is extremely high. The understandable governmental response to this situation has been the widespread enactment of legislative provisions which, in an attempt to assure that at least some reimbursement is made available to persons who suffer injuries from vehicle-related causes, make it compulsory for the owners and operators of motor vehicles to acquire and maintain insurance on their vehicles in order to be allowed to operate those vehicles on the public streets and highways.

Auto Insurance Coverage for Unlicensed Drivers

Possession of a valid driver's license, while a prerequisite for the legal operation of a car or truck on the public roads, is clearly not a prerequisite for being physically capable of driving a vehicle. As a result, a great many motor vehicles in the United States are driven by persons not legally licensed to do so. Such unlicensed operations, and the vehicular accidents that inevitably result from them, raise a number of issues in the area of motor vehicle insurance.

Intentional Injury Exclusion in Auto Insurance

When a vehicle is involved in an automobile accident, the conduct of an insured may activate the automobile insurance policy's exclusion for intentional injury. Intentional injuries include suicide and assault, among other acts. Even though some states require automobile insurance companies to provide statutory minimum coverage, the companies may exclude coverage for intentional injuries. The intentional injury exclusion prohibits an insured, which caused an intentional injury to himself or herself or to another person, from recovering insurance benefits for that injury. This is a common exclusion in automobile insurance policies. Further, most no-fault statutes contain intentional injury exclusions.