ARTICLE 12. GENERAL LIABILITY, BODILY INJURY AND PROPERTY DAMAGE INSURANCE BY STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS.

§6-12-1. General liability insurance for proprietary functions; bodily injury and property damage motor vehicle insurance at public expense; contractors to provide like insurance.

Officers, boards, commissions or agencies of the state or of any county, municipality or any other unit of local or state government, authorized to spend public funds, or to direct the expenditure of public funds, may provide at public expense for liability insurance against risks engendered in their proprietary functions, bodily injury liability and property damage liability insurance against the negligence of the drivers of motor vehicles operated by or for such officers, boards, commissions and agencies in such amount as such officers, boards, commissions and agencies may specify, and any such officer, board, commission or agency having the authority to contract for the use in the service of such officer, board, commission or agency, of any motor vehicle, may require the contractor to provide like insurance at his own expense in such amount as such officer, board, commission or agency may specify.

§6-12-2. Policy may authorize action against insurance company with or without joining driver as defendant.

Any insurance policy obtained in pursuance of the provisions of section one of this article may, by agreement between the insurance company issuing the policy and the officer, board, commission or agency applying for such insurance, contain a provision authorizing an action on such policy to be maintained against the insurance company issuing the policy by or in the name of any person sustaining bodily injury or property damage, either with or without joining the driver of such motor vehicle as a party defendant, or in the name of the personal representative of a deceased person, the proximate cause of whose death was the negligence of the driver. Such provision shall be valid and enforceable if set forth in the body of the policy or in a rider attached to the policy as a part thereof.

§6-12-3. Article not to create new right of action.

This article shall not be so construed as to authorize a right of action against any officer, board, commission or agency where no right of action has heretofore existed.