Personal Insurance Requests After a Company-Vehicle Crash

Attorney Answer

You are not the right person to be answering that letter. A request from the other side's lawyer, before any lawsuit, is a demand rather than a court order, and nothing about it requires you to respond personally. Send it to your employer and to the commercial carrier and let them deal with it. If you have already been served with a lawsuit, that is a different situation and it needs attention today.

The reason the commercial policy is the right layer is that you were working. Under long-settled California law an employer answers for an employee's negligence committed within the scope of employment, and the Court of Appeal applied that principle to an employee driving a company vehicle while on duty in Moreno v. Visser Ranch, Inc., 30 Cal. App. 5th 568 (2018). That is why the claim belongs first to your employer's commercial coverage, not to the policy on your own car.

The statute that backs you up if you end up out of pocket is Cal. Lab. Code § 2802(a). It requires an employer to indemnify an employee for all necessary expenditures or losses the employee incurs in direct consequence of the discharge of their duties. A crash that happened while you were driving the company van on company business sits squarely in that language.

Your personal policy may still have something to say — many personal auto policies limit or exclude coverage for a vehicle furnished for your regular use — but that is a question of your policy's wording and of your insurer's coverage position. It is not something you settle by handing your policy information to the lawyer suing you.

Two related points. California drivers do have obligations at the scene to provide evidence of financial responsibility (Cal. Veh. Code § 16028(a), (c)), and separate obligations to report certain collisions to the Department of Motor Vehicles (Cal. Veh. Code § 16000(a)), so ask a local attorney whether either reaches your crash. And if you were injured yourself while driving for work, the workers' compensation system is the route as against your employer: Cal. Lab. Code § 3602(a) makes compensation the employee's exclusive remedy against the employer where the conditions of compensation concur, with narrow exceptions. That does not affect claims against other drivers.

What you can do

1. Do not respond to the other side's lawyer yourself, and do not send them documents.

2. Forward the letter to your employer today and ask them to put it in front of the commercial carrier.

3. Report the accident to the commercial carrier directly if your employer does not confirm within a few days that it has been reported.

4. Notify your own personal auto insurer that a claim has been made against you. Most policies require notice, and giving notice is not the same as tendering the claim or accepting that the policy applies.

5. Keep the letter and the envelope, and note the date it arrived.

6. If you have been served with a lawsuit, tell your employer and both insurers the same day. A default can be entered while you are still deciding what to do.

7. If you were hurt, report it to your employer as a work injury.

8. Ask a local attorney whether your own coverage should be tendered at all, before you tender it.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with someone who practices in your area is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 generally allows two years for a claim for injury or death, and Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1) generally allows three years for damage to a vehicle. Those periods govern the claim being made against you as well as any claim of your own. If a public entity is involved in the crash, Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2(a)'s six months to present a claim is far shorter, and workers' compensation runs on its own deadlines. Where each stands depends on facts a page cannot see, so have a local attorney review the dates rather than counting from the calendar.