You Nanny, You Drive the Kids: Getting the Insurance and the Car Seats Right

Childcare is one of the most common jobs under 25, and it very often comes with car keys. The insurance answer depends almost entirely on one question: whose car? Here are both versions, as hypotheticals.

Scenario A: say you're 20 and drive the family's minivan

The parents hand you the keys to their minivan for school runs and swim practice four afternoons a week.

What applies. Their policy is the primary coverage on their car, and California requires a liability policy to cover people driving it with the owner's permission (Insurance Code 11580.1). But "four afternoons a week, every week" is a regular driver, not an occasional borrower. Ask the parents to call their insurer and add you, or at least to confirm in writing how their company treats a regular household employee who drives. A careful family will want this sorted as much as you do, because any claim you cause in their car lands on their policy.

Scenario B: say you're 22 and use your own car

The family pays you an hourly rate plus mileage, and you collect the kids from school in your own hatchback.

What applies. Now your policy is first in line if something happens. California's permitted rating factors include the type of use of the vehicle — pleasure, commute, business (10 CCR 2632.5) — and regularly carrying children for pay is a use your insurer should hear about. How a company classifies paid childcare driving, and whether anything changes, varies. Being reimbursed for mileage does not change who is insured; it only changes who pays for the gas.

Also check your limits. You are carrying other people's children. A liability limit chosen when it was just you in the car may feel very different now.

The car-seat rule is yours, not the parents'

Vehicle Code section 27360 says a parent, legal guardian or driver transporting a child under eight must secure the child in a rear seat in an appropriate restraint, and a child under two rear-facing unless the child weighs 40 pounds or is 40 inches tall. The section does not apply to the driver when the child's parent or guardian is riding in the car — so on a normal nanny run, it is on you. A conviction carries one point on your record under Vehicle Code 12810.

• Ask the family to leave the seats installed in the car you will use, or show you how to fit them.
• Check the seat matches the child's current size; children outgrow stages between birthdays.

The trap if you're 16 or 17

A provisional license bars passengers under 20 for the first 12 months unless a parent or guardian, a licensed driver 25 or older, or an instructor is in the car (Vehicle Code section 12814.6). The signed-note exceptions in that section cover night driving or carrying an immediate family member — they do not cover driving an employer's children. During that first year, a babysitting job that involves driving is one to turn down or restructure.

Before the first drive

1. Agree in writing which car you will use and when.
2. Confirm whose policy covers that car and that you are listed if it is regular.
3. Keep the right insurance card in that car.
4. Have the parents' emergency numbers and the children's medical consent details in your phone.

Driving kids for work now? Tell us how you use your car and we will make sure the policy describes it.