melloInsurance

Serving our clients, Serving our community

Third Party Liability

Driving students to an event? What coverage should I have?

Saskatoon Hilltops (Photo credit: Saskatoon Starphoenix)


The School season has officially dropped or “fall”en. (Ha! Knee Slapper – Dad jokes. Gotta love ’em!) With that in mind, many sports activities have started and as parents, teachers or coaches we will get heavily involved, whether it’s with fundraisers, taking kids to practices or games, or organizing home tournaments. 

When travelling to these sporting events, it is important to make sure that your drivers are alert and that they have proper coverage. When you have a van or SUV filled with football or hockey players, things can get a little rambunctious and the driver can be easily distracted by the people or loud music in the vehicle. These distractions to a new driver can severely hinder their ability to drive accurately and with undivided attention.

Most school divisions are starting to filter who can drive and who can’t. Which is a good idea. They should collect drivers abstracts and other claims documentation to make sure that your students are being driven by responsible adults. They are also requiring extension auto policies to be purchased as well. This isn’t so you have a “lesser deductible” if a claim arises. That is a bonus, but that is not the reason they want you to have this policy.

There are 2 coverage’s that come with an auto pak that are underrated and undervalued. Third Party Liability and Family Security. 

What is Third Party Liability? 

This coverage is to protect the driver if he were ever sued for negligence while operating the motor vehicle. When an accident occurs, it is easy to point out the blame. However, there are never cool heads during a claim and especially following an accident. Having liability coverage allows the lawyers and insurance companies to go to work for you, on your behalf, to make sure that you aren’t going to be financially crippled when the claim finally settles. We strongly recommend carrying 2 million liability minimum. This can be purchased for under $50/year. Most inexpensive coverage you can buy. 

What is Family Security? 

This coverage is (kind of) the opposite of liability coverage. Family Security kicks in if you are in an accident with an un-insured or under-insured driver. The person who is at-fault may not have any coverage or very minimal. This can be a serious issue. So to protect yourself from litigation costs and small claims court frustrations – trying to get money from someone who likely doesn’t have much, this Family Security makes sure that you and the passengers in your vehicle are looked after. This coverage will pay for your additional costs – such as: medical costs, hospital bills, lost income, etc. This coverage comes with a 1 million or 2 million dollar limit, depending on the liability limit you carry. Oh and want to hear the best part. This coverage is INCLUDED in the $50 you spend on the liability coverage!!!! YOU DON’T EVEN NEED TO PAY FOR THIS!!!! It’s a no brainer to buy this liability policy!

For $4 a month, you can protect yourself from financial ruin in case you are at-fault in an accident, PLUS you can protect your passengers from unwanted medical bills and financial restrictions that come from being involved in an accident. Protect you and your loved ones today. Call one of our offices and get this set up. It takes less than 5 minutes to get properly covered!

Why do I need liability coverage?

What amount of liability insurance is adequate?  Why do home insurance limits start at $1,000,000? Why does my broker encourage a minimum of $2,000,000?   Aren’t these numbers just a little bit ridiculous? After all, I’m not going to get sued….

These are all very good questions and they are questions that we as brokers get asked quite regularly.  Typically property owners are a little confused over what liability insurance actually provides and when it would ever be used.  So, in this week’s blog we will look at some basic “Liability 101” scenarios so that you can hopefully understand a little more clearly what you are purchasing.

Liability insurance covers damages sustained to a third party’s property as a result of negligence.  This means that liability coverage only extends to things which are accidental in nature. The very definition of negligence in insurance context is “committing an action that a reasonable person would or would not do.”  This means that willful damage to a third party’s property is not covered, nor is there liability coverage for criminal activity, or conducting an activity that is inherently dangerous…. Which one could argue is something that “a reasonable person would not do.”

So, a couple practical examples might help with breaking this down further:

Example 1

You are in a hurry to leave for the weekend.  You leave the house in a rush and as a result you leave the coffee maker on.  In the middle of the night, said coffee maker shorts out, which starts a fire.  Your house burns down, and melts all the siding and seals on your neighbor’s house and windows.  The damage to your neighbor’s house? Well your liability coverage would pick that up! After all, the damage was your fault in this scenario, so why would your neighbor make a claim under their policy?

Example 2

You are driving your car at night.  You are a little sleepy – so your reflexes are a little slower than normal, and when they do kick in, they are exaggerated.  Driving along you think you see a deer running up the ditch on your right. Out of reflex you swerve to the left, but there is an oncoming car.  The oncoming vehicle swerves to miss you and in doing so, hits the ditch and collides with a telephone post. The resulting damage to the oncoming car?  Covered by your liability insurance! After all, your actions are the reason for the other car to be in the ditch, right?

Example 3

You are having a Roman Candle fight with your neighbor in your front yard, and instead of aiming your firework at your neighbor, you start shooting them at his home.  One of the fireworks gets under the vinyl siding and causes extensive damages to one side of his home. The verdict? NOT COVERED. The reason? The argument could be made first of all that you are doing an activity which is inherently dangerous.  Secondly, the argument could be made that since you were aiming your firework at the home, it could be said that it was a willful action to damage the property.

As for the values of liability coverage, it’s easy to justify the limits once you realize the types of losses that need to be covered by liability.  Once you start factoring repairing neighboring homes, or vehicles along with injury payments, it can get pricey!

Next time you are reviewing your policy, remember these examples, and consider the limit you carry.  Do you have enough coverage? For as little as $20 per year, you can upgrade your policy limit from 1 million to 2 million. Higher limits are available if required, please contact your broker for more information.

 

Farm Liability – Protect you and your farm.

Harvest is here. The most exciting & insane time – of the farming year. You’ve got sprayers spraying, swathers swathing, combines combining, truckers trucking and augers augering. #Poetic #SixGeeseALaying #StopEatingMyCrops. You’ve got so many moving machines, people going in a million directions and you’re fighting a timeline before things freeze or mother nature decides to bring a heavy rain or an early snowfall. You have to work around the clock to capitalize on the nicer weather. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a free lunch in the farming world – which is ironic since they feed us all.

With all this commotion of people and moving equipment, plus working day and night; mistakes can be made. For example: You accidentally back the combine into your fuel truck parked behind you. You may take a corner too tight and hit a nearby power pole. You spray the wrong field. You spray during a windy day and accidentally overspray and kill your neighbours crop. There are so many things that “could” go wrong. That is why you carry Comprehensive Farm Liability. You never know what may happen, and even though you do not intend to do any damage; being sleep deprived or just zoned out, you can be negligent and cause a mistake.

Comprehensive Farm Liability is designed to protect yourself against such negligence. Most farm policies will automatically include $1 million liability on your policy (Which, of course, can be increased if required). You will likely need to declare the amount of acres your farm (Rent & Own) as this liability will extend to your entire farm operation. If you decide to do some custom work for other farmers, you may need to look into what limit your insurance carrier allows for this as that now becomes a commercial operation and may need to be reviewed. A little bit of work is usually included (as a neighbourly gesture) by most companies. However, if you plan on doing any custom work – make sure you contact us to make sure your insurance carrier is on board with the custom work, as this is a material change in operation and they need to be notified. 

If you are a landowner, but have wound down your farm operation, it is still important to carry Comprehensive Farm Liability. How the courts determine negligence is open to interpretation. So if someone trespasses on your land (even if it is marked) and are injured on your land. You may be found liable for injury or damage to that person based on the arguments in court. For example, a snowmobiler rides onto your property during the winter. They are zipping through the field and collide into an old set of heavy harrows that have been buried in the snow or an unmarked slough/dugout. The harrows and dugout were not flagged and therefore are the landowners responsibility. He may be found negligent and sued for damages.

This seems like an unfair situation affecting the farmer. However, scenarios that can be out of the farmers control, may still find their way into his responsibility. Again, this is why you carry Comprehensive Farm Liability to protect yourself against things that are out of your control. 

We would love to review this coverage with you and if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We are in your corner and want to serve you in any way we can. Our motto is “Serving our clients, Serving our community,” for a reason. We want to make sure you have a safe, secure and amazing harvest! Thanks for reading!