Does the presence of alcohol invalidate car insurance?

rubble2

Hypothetical question, there was an accident locally in the past few days where two vehicles collided on a roundabout. One driver walked away without injury, the other driver was trapped in her vehicle and had to have the roof removed to enable her to be extracted.

Local social media was very sympathetic to her presumably as she was seen as the 'victim'. It now transpires that she has been charged with DUI of alcohol.

Just wondered, as her car is obviously written off due to the lack of it's roof, would the drunk driving charge invalidate her insurance claim? I assume that the third party claim would be honoured.

giraffe69

I suspect there is a difference between  the presence of alcohol and driving whilst over the limit

El_Torro

A quick Google search tells me that in most cases yes, driving while over the limit means that your insurer is not responsible for paying to repair / write off your car, or for any injury claims you may have. It is still responsible for paying the third party's claim.

I guess it depends on what it says in her policy.

ontheroad1970

Depends who is at fault.  DUI wouldn't necessarily mean that that person is at fault.  

Aretnap

Depends entirely on the terms of the policy.

Many insurers (probably still a majority) have no special terms about drink driving and will honour a claim as normal - just as they would if you if you caused an accidental by driving too fast, not looking at the road ahead or any of the many other stupid illegal things you can do behind the wheel.

Some insurers (eg Hastings) reduce cover to third party only if you are convicted of an alcohol related offence - so no payout for damage to your own car, but this party liabilities still covered.

And some insurers (eg Admiral) void cover to the maximum extent that they can under the road traffic act - which means they will pay out to third parties, but then try to reclaim whatever they pay out from you personally (so for a big accident you could potentially lose everything you own).

All of the above applies to a claim under your own insurance policy. A drunk driver can still make a claim against an at fault third party regardless of the terms of their insurance policy. If you drive into the back of someone at traffic lights, the fact that he turns out to be drunk doesn't get you or your insurer out if paying for the damage to his car. (I suppose if you think that's unfair, you can avoid the problem by not driving into the back of people at traffic lights).