Having excluded drivers on your insurance policy is a good way to keep your premium lower.

Excluded drivers are not allowed to ever drive your vehicle.

Being able to have excluded drivers on your insurance policy can be a mixed blessing. First, being able to exclude a driver that has a bad driving record will bring your insurance premium down. However, if an excluded driver ends up driving your vehicle, you could be facing serious trouble for something you did not cause.

So, be cautious when adding an excluded driver to your insurance policy. Don’t let the joy of the lower premiums overshadow your rationale thinking about the future.

What Are Excluded Drivers?

Excluded drivers are any drivers in your household (or not) that you specifically list on your insurance policy as not driving your vehicles. It could be a young driver that has their own insurance, but you have to either exclude or add them to your policy. It could also be a boyfriend or girlfriend that has a terrible driving record that you don’t want on your insurance policy.

The Benefits of Excluded Drivers

Being able to exclude a specific driver from your insurance policy means that you don’t have to pay the additional insurance premium from adding them to your policy. This can help keep your insurance premiums at decent rates, especially if the excluded driver has a bad driving record.

Bad drivers aren’t the only ones you can see benefits from excluding. You can also exclude young adult children that move back in the home, but have their own insurance. Being able to do this is nice, because these young drivers have higher insurance premiums than the rest of us.

Can Anyone Be an Excluded Driver?

In general, yes, anyone can be excluded from an insurance policy. However, when it comes to the registered owner of a vehicle, the driver exclusions can be tricky. First, some states have laws that prevent the registered owner of the vehicle from being an excluded driver.

Second, insurance companies generally frown on excluding registered owners. There are companies that will do it, but there has to be a pretty darn good reason to do so.

The Downfall of Excluded Drivers

While excluded drivers are a great way to protect your insurance premium from a bad driver; it has its downfalls also. Once a driver is excluded from an insurance policy, they can NEVER drive your vehicle.

If they cause a car accident with your car, you could be held liable for part of the damage. Anything you are held liable for, your insurance company will not pay for because the excluded driver was driving at the time of the accident. So, it is very important that any excluded drivers on your insurance policy have absolutely no access to your vehicle.

Florida registered vehicles have to have insurance, whether you are a citizen or not.

Any vehicle that is a Florida registered vehicle have to have insurance on them. Actually, any vehicles that are currently residing in Florida have to have insurance on them. With that being said, you should have no problem getting insurance on the vehicle.

It is highly advisable that you sit down and speak to an independent insurance agent to get your insurance, in this case. An independent agent writes for a number of different insurance companies, so if one says no, they have other companies to ask. It will save you from having to contact a bunch of insurance companies on your own.

If your agent does find that getting you insurance in your situation will be a problem, they will be able to suggest what you need to do in order to get insurance on your Florida registered vehicle.

Another required, but not required uninsured motorist coverage could be showing up automatically on New York insurance policies.

New York politicians work on changing what is required to be offered on your insurance policy.

Drivers in New York could very well be seeing a new required coverage on their insurance policies here soon. The recent New York state legislative session passed a bill that requires supplementary uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage to now be automatically added to all New York insurance policies.

You don’t have to keep it though; you can opt-out of it if you don’t want it. Just be aware that it will be automatically added to your policy and you will be charged for the coverage if you don’t opt-out.

What is Supplementary Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage?

Supplementary uninsured/underinsured motorist (SUM) coverage basically adds more protection for you and your family than the regular uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage does. It’s like an umbrella policy for your uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage.

SUM is not a new coverage; it has been available to drivers for a while now. The alteration that the New York legislation passed is that it now be automatically added to policies, like the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage is.

Uninsured Motorist Opt-Out

A lot of other states allow you to opt-out of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage altogether. It is not a required coverage; it is just required to be offered to you. This is not what is happening in New York.

The state of New York still requires that you carry uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage; there is no opt-out option for this coverage. It is only the supplementary uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage that this particular bill affects. SUM will not be made mandatory for you to be able to drive in New York; it is just being made mandatory that it has to be offered.

Reactions to the Uninsured Motorist Changes

The first time I read the news that came out on this new bill in New York, my first reaction was that the insurance companies were behind it. It was another way to get something else added to the policy that people would miss the opt-out option for, and the insurance companies would profit from it.

Boy, was I wrong!

The insurance companies were actually against this bill. They are worried that it will seem like they are trying to slip something by the consumer when the coverage is put on the policy without them requesting it.

The driving forces behind this new bill were legal organizations (New York State Trial Lawyers Association) and attorneys. They feel that the bill makes people aware of the coverage they should know more about. They also feel that it better protects the taxpayers from having to foot the bill for medical expenses that end up being covered by public health insurance programs.

What are your thoughts on this new uninsured motorist bill?

Source: Online Auto Insurance News

Being able to exclude a vehicle owner from the insurance policy depends highly on the insurance company and the state.

The person that takes out a loan for a vehicle or owns a vehicle is generally expected to be one the insurance policy. In most cases, the person purchased the vehicle to be able to drive it themselves.

However, there are cases where someone helps another person by taking out a car loan for them, but the person that has the car loan never drives the vehicle. In this situation, it may be possible for the driver of the vehicle to take out an insurance policy in their own name. On this insurance policy the lienholder would of course be listed, but so would the owner of the vehicle. The owner of the vehicle would be listed as having an additional interest in the car and would possibly have to be listed as an excluded driver.

This also means that the excluded driver can never drive the vehicle and if they were to be in a car accident it would not be covered under the insurance policy. This is where the states and the insurance companies get nervous. How can you trust that the person that is the registered owner of the vehicle and holds the loan on it will never drive that vehicle? This also does not satisfy the requirements set forth by the lienholder.

In a good number of states, they do not allow the person that holds the loan or the registered owner to be excluded. In states that do, it is really a company by company decision as to whether they want to take on that type of risk to exclude a vehicle owner.

The GEICO possum commercial makes a good point that there are better ways to save money.

Summary

Commercial opens with a dad on a couch talking about the new family pet.

Dad: Well, the kids wanted a puppy, but they can be really expensive, so to save money I just found them a possum.

Scene switches to two kids in the backyard staring at a possum lying on the ground. The older boy nudges the possum with his foot and it does not move. The camera comes in for a close up of the possum and it looks dead.

Little Girl: Dad, I think he’s dead.

Dad: Probably just playing possum.

Camera goes back to the possum that still looks dead and then he jumps up and hisses at the kids. The kids jump back from the possum and shout.

Dad: There he is.

Dad has been grilling this whole time and doesn’t even look up from the grill for the entire incident.

Announcer: There’s an easier way to save. GEICO; fifteen minutes could save your 50% or more on car insurance.

Commercial ends on a white screen with the words “GEICO” and “GEICO.COM”.

Point of Commercial

This GEICO possum commercial is really similar to the “Can GEICO really save you 15% or more on car insurance” commercials. The only difference is that they are just changing the wording up to be that there are easier ways to save money. With GEICO, the point of their commercials rarely alters to anything else other than they can save you money.

What They Want You to Do

Contact GEICO.com for a rate quote is what they want you to do. Most of us could quote this in our sleep they use it so much. However, this phrase being memorized by drivers across the nation is good for GEICO. It means that when they are thinking about new insurance that they will contact GEICO for a rate quote.

My Opinion

Honestly, I find this GEICO possum commercial disturbing, but also funny at the same time. We don’t have a whole lot of possums where I live in Idaho, and they kind of creep me out for some reason. Now, give one to a child as a pet and have it play dead, and it gives me the creepy crawlies.

However, creepy possum aside, the commercial is funny. It also has a strong call to action like all of the other GEICO commercials and it is one that you won’t forget any time soon.

I give this GEICO possum commercial a thumbs up.