ORIGINAL: Top_Gunn
Do you have a citation to a judicial opinion in the case you've described? As it happens, I do have a fair amount of experience with insurance law. ''An illegal alien hit my friend and it wasn't covered by insurance'' tells us nothing. For instance, was it the illegal alien's policy or someone else's? Was the court's decision based on lack of coverage, on who was at fault, or what? And so on. A story like yours, with no detail, is of no help in understanding what the law on this is. It's like saying ''A guy named Jones ran over my friend and didn't have to pay. This shows that the courts always rule in favor of guys named Jones.'' Well, no.
Hi Top Gunn
The Illegal guy borrowed the car from one of his workmates . The car was properly registered and insured , but since the guy was Illegal , he had no US driver's licence . Even though he had borrowed the car with permission of it's owner , the Insurance refused to pay for the damages because the Illegal guy was breaking the law by driving without a licence . This left my friend to do one of two things , sue the owner of the car that hit his , cause the insurance denied them , or claim it under his own insurance and get hit with a huge deductable and points on his policy (costs more per given level of insurance) ..... Well , of course he wasn't gonna take the time from work and go to the bother of a court case over a $6K car getting totalled , It'd cost him $10K to get any satisfaction !
Now , If need be , I can probablly produce pictures of my buddy's wrecked car , but the point being that there is never a "one size fits all" blanket answer you can give when courts are involved , and you as a Lawyer or whatever legal personnel you are should know this first hand ..... Once the time comes for insurance companies to have to pay a claim , they look for any and every angle possible to whittle down the award to the lowest possible amount . So called insurance "Adjusters" are there to adjust all right , they're there to attempt to adjust DOWN the money their company has to pay !
So yes , I do believe an insurance company would try to distance itself if an Illegal hurt someone with a model plane , just as I believe my friend lost out big time in my example above .....
[8D] Happy Flying ...........