Two houses, teen wants driver license. How do we handle?

[RJTux]

What is the name of your state? Michigan

My ex and I have never been to court, so there is no custody order. We split when son was 2. He's now 15. We've always done 50/50 time. We've been very fortunate and have had is much easier than others in our situation.

But I can't find anything on the Michigan state website and I wanted to see if anyone could drop any knowledge on what needs to be done when a child has two homes and gets a driver's license. We thought we were doing a good thing by avoiding courts and just working things out between us, but in some ways we've made it difficult since we seem to be an odd case.

Here are questions I have:
- Whose address does he use? I technically have more overnights, but she claims him on her taxes.
- If he uses my address and I pay for his insurance, does it extend to ex's car too? Or does she need to add him so he's on two plans?
- If my insurance doesn't cover her too and she chooses not to insure him, what happens if she lets him drive on her time and he gets in an accident? (This is what I'm most concerned about - she told me it's too much $, but she likes the idea of son having license to help her with errand running)
- Can a parent whose address is not on his DL insure him?

Thank you for any help you can give!

RJ

 

[Zigner]

This applies to both of you: If son is driving one of your cars, you should make sure to have him on your insurance policy.

 

[adjusterjack]

This has nothing to do with divorce or court, it has to do with insurance underwriting.

The fact that a young driver resides in both households means that each of you are compelled by your insurance contract to disclose his presence and that he regularly drives, or has access to, each of your vehicles. Each policy will then be charged the rate for a teenage male driver. If either of you fails to disclose his driving you risk having your policy rescinded and claims denied. You have no idea how serious that can be if he causes an accident and injures or kills somebody.

I suggest that you and your ex go together to an independent insurance agent and lay this out for him. You may need to get both your policies with the same company so that only one policy gets charged while the other policy allows the driver.

If that's not possible and one of you doesn't want to pay the higher premium, that owner will need a Named Driver Exclusion. That means he NEVER drives that car under any circumstances, no matter what. Not even if the parent is dying (call 911) because the one time you make an exception is the time that an accident will occur and there will be no coverage.