"Icebound" wrote in message
able.rogers.com...
If he was proveably intoxicated, would not "his" insurance company fight
against paying anything at all, on the basis that the damage occurred
while
he was involved in an illegal activity, and thus he had voided the
insurance
contract?? Or is that a myth??

James' post seems pretty much right on the money to me, except *maybe* the
"flying his own plane" case where he says "his own insurance company would
be [sic] eventually be the payee [sic] to everyone else". The reason for
that "maybe" is that, assuming operating while under the influence is not
covered by the pilot at fault's policy, the true "eventual" payer (not
payee...a payee is someone *to* whom money is paid) would be the pilot at
fault, even though his insurance company may initially pay third-party
claims, and even possibly first-party claims.

In particular, the first thing that happens is that all of the involved
insurance companies look at who they are insuring. If those policies are in
good standing, and the damage is covered by the policy (and in this case, it
probably would be...can't say for sure without looking at each specific
policy), the covered party is protected.

The person who is NOT protected is the pilot flying drunk (most
likely...though there may even be policies that cover piloting while under
the influence). But that's an issue that, for any damage to property
covered by policies in good standing, will be resolved later, by subrogating
(that is, replacing one liable party, the insurance company, with another,
the pilot at fault) the payout back to the pilot at fault.

Note that a key part of James' description is that the son (the pilot at
fault) is almost certainly going to be the ultimate party to pay damages.
Any third party who suffered damage will have their damages covered by some
insurance company, but in each claim the insurance company will turn around
and extract that money from the son.

I suppose it's theoretically possible that the son's insurance company
(assuming he has a policy) might try to get out of paying even the third
party claims, but that seems unlikely, and may not even be permitted by the
applicable state insurance regulations. For example, imagine you are
driving along minding your own business, and a drunk driver crashes into
you. Imagine also that, amazingly enough, that driver has a valid insurance
policy in effect. Would you expect your own insurance to have to pay the
damages? Or don't you think that the drunk driver's policy would have to
pay, even if the driver is ultimately not covered by his own policy due to
some provision against drunk driving?

As the representative of the party at fault, it would be the drunk driver's
policy that pays you. Though, of course, your own insurance company may
initially provide payment for the damages, passing on that payment to the
drunk driver and/or his insurance company later.

Pete