Serving Alcohol to House Guests & Homeowners Insurance Liability Coverage

Can hosts be responsible for the acts of their guests? If you have a party, and one of your guests drinks and drives, and causes a car accident, can you be sued? Yes, you can be legally responsible for injuries or property damage to others, caused by your drunken guests.

_____________________________________________________________________
Is your home or auto insurance company better or worse than average? I review all the leading auto & home insurance companies in the USA, using each company’s customer survey results from recent JD Power insurance studies, as well as each company’s complaint record, to determine if a company is performing better than average, average, or worse than average, for customer service, claims, & price. How is your insurance company rated? Is its coverage competitively priced? Does it have a higher than average number of customer complaints? Find out by reading the reviews on my home page by clicking smartshopyourcarinsurance.com.
_____________________________________________________________________

Many states have social host laws, making the host of a party (even if it is only one guest, and not a party) liable for the drunken activities of their guests in certain situations. Will your homeowners insurance protect you? Some insurance company’s homeowners insurance policies will cover you, but others will not cover you.

There was a case in Colorado where a drunk driver injured a person in their own driveway, and the injured party was awarded 18.5 million dollars. A settlement this high is not typical, but it gives you an idea of what is at stake.

How would you like to lose all your assets, and file bankruptcy, because you chose the wrong insurance company to insure your home?

Avoid feeling ripped off when the unexpected happens, by shopping for the best homeowners insurance with the broadest coverage available at a reasonable price.

This blog post focuses on homeowners insurance, but even if you rent, and have a friend over for drinks, you can be the subject of a large lawsuit, if your friend injures someone on their way home from your house. You may not have assets, but if you have a paycheck, your wages can be garnished a little at a time, until the debt is paid.

If the injured person’s insurance company pays a claim, you can bet they will come after anyone legally liable for the injury, to get their money back. Most renters don’t have renters insurance. Don’t make this mistake and risk being unlucky.

This blog post will explain how some insurance companies exclude coverage for social host liability, which is equally important to people with renters insurance, mobile home insurance, & condo insurance, as well as homeowners insurance. I will also give you advice on how to try to avoid being liable in these situations, which is of particular importance if you can’t find an insurance company covering social host liability.

Hopefully, your insurance will cover you, but remember to consider the complaint record of your insurance company, too. You may be covered under your insurance policy, but you want to avoid insurance companies more likely to make getting a claim paid difficult.

Ideally, you can avoid social host liability by never serving alcohol to your guests, and not allowing them to drink — even BYOB — on your premises. This is not an option for people finding it important to drink with, & entertain friends. Can you give up the poker game you host with your friends, or eliminate drinking from it? Can you give up wine at your dinner parties? You may keep yourself from being sued, but you also will keep yourself from having fun.

Even if you don’t entertain, or allow drinking when you do, do you have kids? You may think your kids would never throw a party, or have friends over to sneak drinks, possibly while you are home, but many parents find out about the clandestine activities of their children the hard way.

If someone underage gets drunk at your home, with or without your knowledge, and gets hurt, or injures someone, you can bet you will get sued, even if it turns out you are not liable.

I recommend you choose an insurance company covering you for social host liability. You may be a responsible host — don’t over-serve, don’t allow drinking games, don’t encourage drinking, take away car keys, watch your guests closely, and remain sober yourself — and end up being sued when you have done nothing wrong.

It is not unusual for insurance companies providing social host liquor liability in their insurance policies to specify it is covered, but limit coverage to $100,000 or $300,000.

However, there are a few ways insurance companies do not cover social host liability without mentioning it. Obviously, if host liquor liability is specifically excluded in the wording of your policy, you are not covered.

But some companies avoid covering social host liability with a broad motor vehicle exclusion, where the insurance policy does not pay for any bodily injury or property damage resulting from a car accident.

Some insurance companies have a motor vehicle exclusion applying only to cars owned or operated by the insured, and other residents of the insured’s household.

This makes sense because the insured’s auto insurance should pay in these situations. Without this exclusion, if you hit another car with your car, the other car owner could file a claim against your homeowners insurance for the damage to their car.

But insurance companies excluding coverage for any auto driven by anyone from their homeowners insurance policy, has broader consequences.

For example, someone gets drunk at your party, drives home, and gets in an accident causing injury to a pedestrian. The pedestrian sues you for serving the drunk driver alcohol. Social host liability is not excluded, but any injury from an auto accident is excluded, so you would have to pay for your own legal defense, and the cost of any judgment if you lose.

There are other ways insurance companies exclude social host liability.

I checked my own condo insurance policy, and I have the more favorable motor vehicle exclusion, only excluding the cars I own or drive, but there is an exclusion for statutory liability. If I am liable for injury or damage due to the Oregon social host law, I’m not covered.

So, how do you make sure you know how you are covered, without going to law school to become an expert on interpreting insurance policy language?

Contact your agent or insurance company and have them show you the wording in the policy proving you are covered for liquor/social host liability.

As I described in the examples above, it is not good enough to see it not excluded in the policy. If your agent or company says you are covered, ask them to put it in writing.

Most agents are honest, and would not intentionally mislead you, but in the course of my career, I have seen agents speak off the cuff to reassure a customer about coverage, not knowing there may be no coverage. What your agent says to you cannot be proved. What you have in writing from your agent can be proved.

Frankly, if you read this blog post, you may know more about social host liability, and how it may be excluded from your homeowners insurance, than your agent.Many agents can go their whole careers without facing a claim for social host liability, and don’t know how the insurance policy they sell covers it.

Fortunately, most people will never have such a claim — you only need to be concerned with it because it can be financially devastating if you are one of the unlucky few sued under these circumstances.

When you shop your homeowners insurance to find social host liability coverage, ask each agent about how social host/liquor liability is covered, by their insurance company and their competition. Use the collective knowledge of several agents, and it will help you know when you have an agent properly informed on this issue.

Having a lawyer review your policy for coverage is always a good idea, and is most likely a service you can use if you have prepaid legal services.

The good news is the broad coverage you need may be provided by a homeowners insurance company with a less expensive policy than you pay now.

The liability of social hosts varies by state. You can find a good resource to find out information about your state laws here. Remember, if you want proper legal advice, consult a competent lawyer.

To limit the chance of a large lawsuit due to social host liability, do these two things, when you and your family entertain:

1. Prevent any under-age drinking

2. Make sure no one gets drunk, and make sure no one visibly intoxicated continues to drink.

You can’t completely remove the chance of being sued if you entertain, but you can make it much less likely by monitoring your guests and only associating with those people whom drink responsibly.

Many people pay too much for their insurance because they never shop for better rates, or if they do shop, they don’t check the rates of enough companies. For a lot of people, the best insurance company is the one with the lowest rates. The ad below will take you to links to get online quotes from leading Home, Auto, Health, & Life insurance companies in your area. Choose the type of insurance, put in your zip, and start shopping now!

Of the viagra online cerritosmedicalcenter.com 75% of children with cerebral palsy in developing simple motor skills. However, erectile problem caused by these reasons lasts for a few minutes and get plenty rigidness to the male organ which indicates for firm erection during coitus acts. cerritosmedicalcenter.com low cost viagra Simply put, it is plain logic that an individual is buying cialis discount price that will be helpful for those who are uncomfortable in using the illuminated reticles or have limited uses. This is another order levitra online why not try this out subjective aspect, particular to individuals and segments of society, contributing to the friction in gender relations.

Do you have thoughts about this blog post? Tell me about it. Please leave a comment on my facebook page. Or, you can e-mail me at help@smartshopyourcarinsurance.com if you have questions and would like my help. Follow me on Twitter for important insurance consumer news and new blog entries at CarInsWatch.