Please help me figure out this problem. I live in NJ USA. I have a vehicle leased in my name. I want my adult son to use it as his while I continue to pay the lease. However, when shopping for auto insurance, they claim that they can’t insure the vehicle unless my son is listed as an owner/lessor or co-lessor on the vehicle since he lives at another address. My leasing company will not list my son on the vehicle. See my problem? My son is driving the vehicle as his but we cannot insure it. How is this even possible? I can’t be the first person in history to give a famaily member a leased vehicle.
Just list yourself on the insurance policy along with your son. You will be the policy holder, and your son will be on it as a listed driver.
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If the car is in your name, the insurance policy will also have to be in your name. You can list your son as an additional driver, although I am not sure if the insurance company will give you pushback on this since he lives at a different address. In any event, you will need to be the policy holder as the lessee.
You need to add your son as an additional driver on your own insurance policy. Usually insurance companies allow that specially for kids who live at dorms and stuff while in college and come home for weekends or holidays etc.
My current insurance won’t allow that. Do you know of any carriers in NJ that do?
Is your adult son a college student? You might be able to transfer the lease depending on the bank.
Current insurance co won’t allow it.
Nope, just out on his own.
Get a new policy with his address. You are the policy holder. He is a driver.
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Because if you read the terms of your lease agreement, you will see that you’re trying to assign the leasing companies’ property to a third-party, who just happens to be your son, which is a violation of your lease agreement. If you were to walk into a dealership and try to lease a car for your son where he wasn’t on the paperwork either, that’s a straw deal, which is considered fraud.
Go back to your lease contract and read the assignment clause.
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I don’t see a solution if he is not a college student. What is the brand of your car? Which bank is the lessor?
Agreed. Think of it as the same situation as a car rental - OP’s son driving the leased car is likely (depending on agreement) in violation of the lease terms, and is driving around uninsured.
All it takes is one accident, regardless of fault, and it’ll go downhill very quickly.
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Something isn’t adding up here. Unless you have tons of accidents or tickets, no reason why insurance wouldn’t want to add your son to the policy. Unless he lives in another state completely then I can see an issue but if he’s in NJ, you aren’t telling full story here
If your end game is to “save money” then you’re better off buying your son a POS car
People do stuff all the time without thinking through the ramifications or what liabilities they’re exposing themselves to.
Giving the car for someone else to drive like this, whether your son or not, is opening yourself up to the possibility that insurance will deny coverage in the event of an accident and/or the leasing company holds you in default of the lease agreement.
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Money is not an issue. Insurance won’t add his name to the policy if he does not live at my address.
Whichever way you slice this you will be doing something on the gray line because the car is not in your son‘s name. The simplest would be to either not tell them that he lives in a different place or to get a policy at his place with you as the primary and him as additional.
AFAIK State Farm will insure an additional driver at a different address as long as the primary policy holder resides at the address where the vehicle is registered. They have helpful local brokers that can confirm this for you.
The alternative is to transfer the lease to your son to take yourself out of the equation.
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I used to live in NJ and I was always under my parents insurance even living in central jersey and my parents in north jersey. Either your son is a super high risk driver or too many tickets/claims.
All the cars I grew up driving were always under my parents name.