People automatically associate car insurance with driving.
Many parents tell their teenagers that they may get their license and drive as soon as they are able to pay for their own insurance.
Those two ideas become so closely bonded that it would never occur to most people that there might be reasons to seek car insurance without license.
One of the reasons vehicles must be insured is to protect the owner in the event of damage to other people's lives and property.
A driver learns about that reason as soon as he buys a car and is informed he can't drive it off the lot without first insuring it.
That coverage, in effect, insures the community from bad driving.
But owners also purchase coverage against damage to, and theft of, the vehicle itself.
In this sense it really is "car" insurance.
It may have nothing whatever to do with what happens when the car is being driven.
Suppose for example that someone owns a valuable antique automobile that he shows in exhibitions around the country.
The owner may never drive the vehicle at all.
He may have someone else drive it the few yards from the trailer on which it travels to the exhibit hall floor.
The fact that the owner doesn't drive it does not mean that the vehicle does not need to be insured.
This rare gem of a vehicle under certain conditions might all off the trailer.
Maybe someone driving another vintage vehicle in the exhibit will make a wrong turn and plow into the rare gem.
Damage to the vehicle could be enormously expensive to repair.
If it falls off the conveyance vehicle and lands on another vehicle or assorted persons or property there could be costly liability issues.
Without insurance the costs incurred could be devastating.
There are any number of reasons why the owner of such a car would be unlicensed.
Maybe he or she is elderly and has given up driving even though unwilling to part with the car that provided years of happiness.
Maybe the owner doesn't like to drive and prefers to let a chauffeur take care of that little chore.
It's even possible that the owner of this valuable antique car is too young to drive it.
Under-age people sometimes inherit valuable gifts from doting ancestors and then have to wait a year or two before being able to fully benefit.
The law can tell people when they can drive but it usually can't tell them when to die.