Taking the Keys to Someone Else's Car

A friend offers you their car for an afternoon. Nothing about that is unusual, and for the most part it works exactly as everyone assumes. It is still worth knowing what you are relying on, because the assumptions get expensive if they are wrong.

The general rule

Insurance ordinarily follows the vehicle. Drive a friend's car with their permission and their policy is normally the one that responds first — this is permissive use. Your own policy, if you have one, may sit behind it for certain coverages. The ordering matters less than the principle: the owner's insurance is in the front line, and a claim goes on the owner's record.

What to ask before you take the keys

Four short questions, asked once, in a friendly tone:

1. "Is the insurance current?"
2. "Is there anyone excluded from driving it?"
3. "Does it have collision coverage, or just liability?"
4. "What is the deductible if I damage it?"

The third and fourth are the ones nobody asks. If the car carries liability only and you damage it, there may be no coverage to repair it at all — and you and your friendship are the fallback.

The part that makes it awkward later

An at-fault collision in a borrowed car is normally a claim against the owner's policy. That means their deductible, their claims history and their renewal. You will feel obliged to make it right, and you will be having that conversation from a weak position because the money has already been spent.

Decide in advance who covers the deductible. It is a slightly uncomfortable thirty seconds and it removes an argument that damages friendships.

Two situations to be careful about

• Regular borrowing. If you use a friend's car every week, that stops being occasional. Their carrier may expect to know about a regular driver — ask.
• Anything commercial. Delivering food, moving goods for payment, or any business use in a borrowed car is where personal policies commonly contain exclusions. Do not assume.

Where you are the one lending

Everything above applies in reverse. Lending your car means lending your insurance, your deductible and your claims history. A new driver whose own record is only months old has the least room to absorb that, so it is entirely reasonable to say no — and better than saying yes resentfully.

If you drive other people's cars often and have no policy of your own

There is a product for exactly that: a non-owner policy, which provides liability coverage for a person who drives but does not own a vehicle. It is worth asking about if borrowing is a regular part of your life, and it has the useful side effect of building continuous coverage in your own name — which is itself a rating factor later.

Ask us whether a non-owner policy fits your situation.