Does the insurance company have the right to ask me for the TIN of a person that I hired and had an accident in which my car was totaled?
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Does the insurance company have the right to ask me for the TIN of a person that I hired and had an accident in which my car was totaled?
I hired this person and paid them for childcare and house cleaning. They sustained injuries in a car accident in which my car was totaled.
Asked on April 3, 2012 under Accident Law, Texas
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
The insurer is absolutely entitled to ask for this. If the person was at fault, then the insurer may be entitled to recover some of its payments to you (e.g. for the value of your car) from the at-fault employee. The insurer may also have grounds to avoid paying compensation to this person hims/herself, for his/her injuries, if he/she was at fault. Furthermore, if the person turns out to not have a valid driver's license or be ineligible to drive legally in the U.S. (e.g. he or she is an undocumented immigrant), the insurer may be able to disclaim coverage to you entirely--i.e. not pay you--because of your neglience (and/or breach of the terms of your own insurance policy, if it's your insurer, not a third party's) in letting an unlicensed, unlawful driver drive your car.
There are other issues as well--if the person regularly drove your car, should they have been listed as another driver on your policy, for example? Overall, this person, his/her fault, his/her eligibility to drive, and whether he/she commonly drove your car, are integral to determining responsiblity to pay, so the insurer may seek information about him/her.
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