Claiming on Your Driver's Policy Means Naming the Driver

Attorney Answer

Yes — a lawsuit would name your boyfriend, not the insurance company. That sounds worse than it usually is in practice. In California you generally pursue the person whose driving caused the harm; his liability insurer is the one that investigates, hires and pays the defense lawyer, and pays a settlement or judgment up to the policy limits. His name is on the paperwork because the claim is about his driving. The money still comes from the policy he bought for exactly this.

The rule behind the claim is Civil Code § 1714(a): "Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself." In a single-vehicle crash the person whose care is in question is almost always the driver. A passenger is rarely part of that inquiry.

Now the delay, which is the part you can actually push on. California's Fair Claims Settlement Practices regulations put clocks on an insurer. Under 10 California Code of Regulations § 2695.7(b), "Upon receiving proof of claim, every insurer, except as specified in subsection 2695.7(b)(4) below, shall immediately, but in no event more than forty (40) calendar days later, accept or deny the claim, in whole or in part." If it needs longer, § 2695.7(c)(1) requires written notice of that need inside the same window, and then a further written notice every thirty calendar days until it decides. Under § 2695.5(b) the insurer has fifteen calendar days to give a complete response to a communication from a claimant that reasonably suggests a response is expected. And under § 2695.7(h), once it accepts a claim — and, where one is necessary, receives a properly executed release — it has thirty calendar days to tender payment.

Those clocks run from proof of claim, not from the date of the crash. If the adjuster is still waiting on records, the forty days may not have started. That is worth checking before you conclude the file is being sat on.

What you can do

1. Send the adjuster a short, dated written request for the status of the claim and for a list of anything they are still missing, and keep a copy of what you sent.

2. Get your medical records and bills to the adjuster, since the forty-day clock in § 2695.7(b) runs from proof of claim.

3. Keep every letter, email and voicemail from the insurer, with dates — that record is what makes a delay complaint concrete.

4. If the file stays stalled, file a complaint with the California Department of Insurance. Under 10 C.C.R. § 2695.5(a) the insurer must give the Department a complete written response within twenty-one calendar days of its inquiry.

5. Ask a local lawyer to read any release before you sign it, and to tell you what naming your boyfriend as a defendant would and would not mean for him personally.

6. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with a local attorney is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. A claim for injury in California runs on Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, which gives two years for an action for injury caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. Whether that period is still open on your facts, and whether anything about your situation changes it, is not something to work out from a webpage. Have a local attorney check the deadline for your case, and do it before the negotiation drags any further.