If you believe that your homeowners insurance includes protection against personal injury, think again. Keep reading to clear up some common misconceptions about this coverage and learn how to get protected.
Personal Liability vs Personal Injury
First, it’s important to understand the difference between personal liability and personal injury coverage.
A lot of people assume that these two terms are interchangeable. The truth is that they offer very different types of protection.
Personal liability coverage is part of most homeowners policies and helps cover medical bills and legal costs if you or other members of your family (or even your pet) cause bodily injury or property damage to other people.
Personal injury coverage, on the other hand, is not typically included with your homeowners insurance. This coverage helps when the damage you or your family are responsible for doesn’t fall within the categories of bodily injury or property damage.
In the next section, we’ll take a closer look at the scenarios where personal injury coverage can offer crucial protection.
Do I Need To Add Personal Injury Coverage to My Homeowners Insurance?
It may help to think of personal injury coverage as protection against lawsuits where the damage is mainly psychological or moral.
The lawsuits that arise from this type of situation can be very costly and include:
- Wrongful eviction or wrongful entry
- Libel and/or slander
- Malicious prosecution
- False arrest
To get a sense of how easily you could end up needing personal injury coverage, just think of social media. Chances are good that you and everyone in your household use social media for everything from reading news to staying in touch with friends and relatives.
Now, imagine that you or another member of your family make a careless social media post about someone, and that person takes you to court because they consider the post to be slanderous or libelous.
Even if you are cleared in the end, the legal process can be costly to the point of seriously damaging your finances. Personal injury coverage protects you and your family by covering legal fees up to the limits stated in your policy.
How to Get Personal Injury Coverage?
Most homeowners policies don’t include personal injury coverage, but you can add it to your policy as an endorsement.
The great news is that personal injury coverage is typically inexpensive, so you can get the protection you deserve at a really affordable price.
And for even greater peace of mind, you can consider purchasing umbrella insurance, a coverage that steps in when the costs of a claim exceed the limits of your policy.
To get started, contact our agents at RF1 Insurance Services: we’ll be glad to offer assistance and answer all your questions.
RF1 Insurance Services: Homeowners Insurance in California
At RF1 Insurance, we work with some of the world’s most trusted insurance companies, including Safeco, Guard, Stillwater, National General Premier, Aegis, and the California FAIR Plan.
Contact us by email (info@RF1ins.com), telephone (909-359-2067), or social media (Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn) for a free quote or to learn more about a full range of insurance solutions.
