Can a vehicle have more than one primary driver?
To own and operate a vehicle in Canada, you need auto insurance. But sometimes ownership, or at least the use of a vehicle, is shared. So how does this work with insurance?
He who drives the most...
A vehicle can only have one primary driver listed on the car insurance documents. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have more people insured to drive the same vehicle.
Primary drivers are the main, or most frequent, drivers of a vehicle. As such, insurance rates are set with these drivers in mind. A young primary driver will face higher insurance rates than an older primary driver. Similarly, a male driver will have higher premiums than a female driver and a new driver will need to pay more than an experienced driver.
Because insurance rates are determined based on primary drivers, having more than one primary driver doesn’t make sense – how would the insurance company know how to price the premiums?
Pick a primary
Usually, it will be pretty obvious who the primary driver of a vehicle is. If you are driving the car to work daily while your spouse takes the bus, you are the primary driver. However, you might find yourself in a situation where you and your spouse (or your teenaged child) are driving the vehicle for equal amounts of time. In this case, you will have to choose a primary driver.
It might be tempting to pick the driver who will produce the cheapest rates, but remember, if the insurance company finds out you’re lying to save money, they can cancel your policy or deny your claim.
What can you do?
Instead of committing insurance fraud, make an objective decision: put the most frequent driver as the primary driver and list the other drivers as secondary or occasional drivers.
Secondary or occasional drivers are people who only drive the vehicle sometimes. You’ll want to make sure you include all the secondary drivers on your policy – spouses, teenagers, etc. – or risk having a claim denied if a non-insured driver causes an accident.
The process is quite simple. When your insurance broker asks who the primary driver will be, more often than not you will tell the broker that it’s the owner of the vehicle, or the person who uses it for his daily commute. Then, your insurance broker will ask if you’ll like to insure anyone else and you’ll provide the details for your secondary drivers.
Because of the way car insurance rates are calculated, it doesn’t make sense to have a vehicle have more than a single primary driver. Simply put, a primary driver is someone who operates the vehicle most often. Any other drivers can be insured as secondary or occasional drivers.