MIL drove into DH's van

[OldSkooler]

While pulling out of our drive in her car MIL has damaged DH's van that was parked on the road. For various complicated childcare related reasons she is a named driver on his policy and he is on hers. MIL thinks her insurance will not cover it as she is named on DH's policy and you can't claim against yourself but surely that's not right? DH says cost of fixing his van would be expensive so we/MIL couldn't afford it without insurance.

Doesn't matter if she's named on his policy or not, she was driving her vehicle which is the vehicle that the policy is on. She isn't the policy holder of your DHs van.

Her claim will need to be included on her as a ND when his policy renews though.

MIL is talking nonsense.

I used to work in car claims. It doesn't make any difference that she's a named driver on the policy of the car she hit, or that your DH is named on her's.

Thank you, that's what I thought. DH needs his van for work so it needs fixing.

I once hit our camper van with my own car, so I was kind of claiming against myself, insurance covered the repairs to both vehicles.

I managed to drive one of our cars into the back of the other one -- was on both policies and claimed for damage to both through the insurance.

That was a good day!

Did it affect the premium of both policies? DH is now thinking of taking MIL off his policy as worried about the increase in price but would mean that MIL would only be able to drive the van under her third party provision.

Yes it will affect both policies and will have to be declared to both. I would remove her, but would not let her drive it either. As the risk to his livelihood on a 3rd party insurance is not worth the risk. (If you can't afford to repair now, How would you repair or replace if she had an accident?)

Why does your MIL need to be named on the policy of his work van? If she has her own vehicle surely she just uses that. I am named in my husbands van policy purely for convenience should I ever wish to drive it. I can't see any reason why I would choose to use that over my own car?

Remove her from dh's policy. If she needs to drive his van she could arrange temporary insurance for a day via a company like Veygo.

MIL drove into the back of FIL's car at a roundabout (or possibly it was vice versa, it was a while back). The insurers seemed surprised that it wasn't a driveway collision, 'as that's usually what's happened when a couple both claim'.

MIL needs to occasionally drive the van as DC have a hobby that requires it and if neither DH/me can take them she helps us out.

That's a great tip, thank you, didn't know that.