Vehicles Used to Service Insured Location

February 2, 2011

Please provide your coverage opinion. Our insured resides in Perris, CA and was the victim of a theft of her $6,000 golf cart. The insured states the sole purpose of the golf cart was for checking mail at a community mailbox about 5 to 6 houses away via a public street. The insured owned the cart since 2006 and it is parked on the driveway on a daily basis.

 

The HO-3 policy excludes coverage for motor vehicles except where the vehicle is NOT registered for use on a public highway and is solely used for the service of the insured location. Our question is: does checking mail constitute servicing the insured location? We note that your coverage guide includes a similar scenario but slightly different and concludes it is not servicing the insured location.

California Subscriber

Looking at the dictionary definition of service, Merriam Webster Online defines service as: to perform services for: as to repair or provide maintenance for . In such context getting the mail is not really servicing the premises – it's not actively doing anything to the property to repair or enhance it the way taking mulch to the garden would, or even taking the tomatoes from the garden to the house. The cart is going off the property and while it makes the insured happy to retrieve mail this way, it really isn't servicing the premises.