Insurance on third party's car

Off-Ramp
1

A friend has a leased car and he’ll be abroad for 2~3 months.

He offered me to keep his car in case I need it during this time period.

Since I’m still new to the US insurance game, my question(s) are:

1- Can I add a car to my insurance even though it isn’t registered on my name?
2- Assuming I can insure it, does my friend need to keep his car insured during this time? I know there’s an obligation to keep the car insured during the lease term, not sure if it matters who is paying for such insurance.

2

You are forgetting the most important item.

Will the Lessor allow me to drive the car?
That answer is usually no.

But yes you can insure a car that isn’t in your name, but it might alert the lessor to the situation.

3

Yes: the person who signed should read their lease agreement, many have specific insurance coverage/deductibles they must maintain throughout the lease.

Just be careful with this

The lease says it can’t be reassigned or subleased to a third party, it doesn’t mean nobody else can ever drive the lease.

If OP was asked to drive it once a week to keep the battery charged, or because (for whatever reason) it’s parked and needs to be moved, etc. — lots of possible reasons. Different than OP insuring and driving it whenever they want.

Depending where I lived, I wouldn’t want to be pulled over driving “my friend who is out of the country’s” car, forget taking it on a road trip…

4

As I said, the answer is usually no.

Getting insured on the car will definitely show that it isn’t a keep the battery charged and I’m going on a multi month trip with it.

Edit there is POSSIBLY one avenue to this, OP lives with the car owner and can be added onto the owners insurance.

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5

Adding more details, he can’t leave the car parked for long periods of time in front of his house (you gotta love some HOAs) and would have to pay to park his car somewhere else…

I have space and am returning one of my leases at the same time, so it would work fine for both of us while I look for a new lease.

6

This is insurance and state specific. We had this issue with a live in care giver. She had to be on our insurance since she drove our car Monday through Friday. She then bought her own car and we figured we would just add it to our insurance since we had to keep her on it anyway. Geico would not let us add her car to our policy since it wasn’t in our name.

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7

Good data point. I’ll check with my insurance.

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