Legal Question in Insurance Law in California

Automobile insurance is a package deal. We insure the owner generally whenever they are driving, and at least one vehicle they own. I believe there are driver-only policies out there but they can't insure a vehicle they don't own. They are for people like contract truckers who drive but don't own the rig and aren't employees. That's an Excess and Specialty Line policy and becoming more and more rare. You can't insure the actual vehicle against damage any more than you can insure you're neighbor's house against a fire.

The usual situation is a person who is insured on their own car, is driving someone elses' car. In that case the driver's insurance is primary and the owner's insurance is secondary. The other less but not uncommon situation is someone who has no car and therefore has no insurance is driving a borrowed car.that is insured. In that case the vehicle insurance covers the owner and the driver as long as the driver was given permission to use the car, wasn't listed as an excluded driver on the policy (such as is often the case with roommates). The BIG warning for a person borrowing the car if they don't have their own insurance is to make sure there is a current insurance card on the car. It's bad enough if you are at fault, but if you're borrowing friends' cars they can't sue you for much. BUT if you are driving an uninsured car without your own insurance on your own car, and someone slams into you, the law prohibits you from claiming any losses other than medical bills actually paid, lost wages, and damaged property. So you could come out of the hospital a month later after agonizing surgery and with permanent pain and suffering, and all you could get from the at fault driver is your Kaiser co-pay, a month of lost paychecks and replacement cost of your laptop that got smashed.