Company car burned down my barn | No coverage?

by Tim
(lake village, IN)

I had my company provided car parked on my property next to a barn. The car caught on fire, and we could not move the car. called the fire dept and by the time they came out the barn was on fire.

The barn burned down. I did not have any home owner insurance there. It is just land and a barn, no house there.

The company's insurance co said they will not cover the property damage, something about that I cant take a liability claim againt myself. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Answer:


Hello Tim,

This is a very complex issue. If you are the insured (which if you are the driver, you can be the insured - insured and property holder are not the same thing), there might not be coverage for this as the only coverage that a car policy would possible cover damage to other structures is liability coverage.

Liability requires the insured to be liable to someone else. There lies the problem, you would be liable to yourself.

Your confusion seems to be related to "the car caught on fire" thus the car owner must be liable. The problem is that 99% of fires are not a "fault" problem or if they are, the person in possession of the item is more liable than the owner. If the vehicle was under your management and control, it will be argued that it is your duty that the car is up to date in maintenance and everything so this type of thing does not happen.

In addition, most auto policies do not cover for mechanical break down, and if the fire was created by a mechanical break down, they might not provide coverage for that either.

You really need legal representation here.

For more information, please see:

http://www.auto-insurance-claim-advice.com/auto-fire-claim.html

Good Luck,
http://www.auto-insurance-claim-advice.com