Expert: Richard Hixenbaugh - 6/12/2010

Question
State of California

My step-daughter was driving her father's car and had an at fault accident with another vehicle. Fortunately, no injuries to anyone, but 2 cars totaled. A citation was issued for failing to yield to oncoming traffic.

She and the car were fully insured on her father's policy. It will all be taken care of 100% by he and his insurance. My insurance is not involved at all.

The Question:

When do I have to disclose this accident and ticket to MY insurance company? She is a named insured as an occasional driver on my wife and my 2 cars. Do I have a duty to disclose it now, or at the time that my policy comes up for renewal in about 5 months?

I have looked everywhere in my insurance policy for some indication of a duty to disclose but can't find anything.

If I disclose now, we will probably get hit with big time rate changes immediately for this accident and ticket.

If I don't disclose now, and then she gets into an accident in one of our cars, I don't want our insurance company to claim that we breached the insurance contract by failing to disclose this at-fault accident.

Is there an industry wide policy on this type of disclosure?

Answer
Hi Steve,

You should relax...

You are not required to disclose. It is up to the insurance company to run a DMV report when the policy renews if they want to. If you did disclose now they can not increase your rates until the policy renews. An insurance company is not allowed to change premiums in mid term of the policy. IN some cases an insurance company may send out a questionaire prior to renewal asking for any information that has changed. If they specifically ask about anyones driving record then you should be truthful. But if they don't ask...don't tell. Eventually they will run a DMV report and they will hit you with a higher rate at that time.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh