Most people have no idea of all the different coverages provided by their home owners insurance policy, or their tenants policy. House or apartment insurance is not that expensive compared to car insurance for example but it usually provides much more than fire and theft coverage.
Most home insurance policies also protect the home owner or the tenant against loss or damage anywhere in the world, as well as provide protection from negligence claims by others. For example, if you travel to Portugal, and your expensive camera is stolen and or other valuables are stolen there is a very good chance that your home or tenants policy of insurance will cover the loss.
There are other protections as well. Years ago a young man came to see me because when he was at school – he was a high school student – while outside during a break on school grounds in the winter he suddenly got hit in the eye by a snowball. Unfortunately his eye was permanently damaged and he lost some sight.
He was an innocent bystander. He was just standing in the school yard talking to his friends. There was another group of students having a snowball fight and one of them missed and accidently hit my client in the eye. It was clearly negligence on the part of the other student who threw the snowball. The only problem was that the person who threw the snow ball was a young person as well. There are a few challenges with this type of claim. One of them is that there are special rules that determine when you can successfully sue a person who is not yet an adult. But even if we could sue the student that threw the snowball who would pay the damages? Could we sue the school? Maybe. I’m quite sure that the student who threw the snowball could not afford to pay the damages.
As it turned out the parents of the person who threw the snowball owned a house. And almost everyone these days who owns a house has a policy of insurance. If you have a mortgage then the lender insists that you have insurance.
We advised the parents to notify their home insurance company. Most policies of insurance protect not just the home owners but also their dependents. In the end the parents insurer paid for the damages.