Injuries that have resulted from a common accident are covered.
Homeowner’s insurance represents a promise of liability coverage for the policy holder/homeowner.
A typical policy has a limit on the amount of money available to the injured party. Some homeowners purchase an umbrella policy. It would cover a more expensive treatment, if an accident victim, needed such a treatment. It would also cover the medical expenses that were linked to an injury caused by an uncommon accident.
Still, even a homeowner with an umbrella policy would need to pay out-of-pocket for certain injuries. Those might be sustained by someone that has been given permission to step onto the owned premises.
When would a homeowner’s policy not guarantee coverage for someone that had been injured on the policyholder’s premises?
A homeowner’s policy would not cover an injury that had been caused by an intentional act. In other words, homeowners have a right to defend their premises. If an act of defense were to injure an anticipated or surprise visitor, the injured victim could not be guaranteed coverage, through the property owner’s insurance policy.
Does the status of the person that has stepped onto someone else’s property matter? Does it affect the right of the property owner to harm that specific guest/visitor?
In the past, that status did make a difference. Today, though, as long as someone is not a trespasser, the property owner has no right to inflict intentional harm on the same individual. Of course, the nature of the guest or visitor’s acts could limit the restrictions on the property owner’s rights.
If a guest or visitor were to demonstrate harmful intentions, the property owner could take defensive actions, even if those managed to injure the guest/visitor.
The injured victim could not seek full compensation for the sustained injuries, because he or she could be charged with shared blame, as per personal injury lawyer in St. Catharines.
In most states shared blame goes by this name: comparative fault. According to the principle of comparative fault, any action that has helped to cause a reported injury could become the reason for an appropriate deduction in the size of the compensation for the contributor, someone that could be the injured party.
While most states adhere to the principle of comparative fault, a few do not. Some take their guidelines from the principle of contributory fault. According to that principle, there should be no compensation for anyone that has made the smallest contribution to the causes for a given accident.
So, someone injured in an accident on someone else’s property could not automatically assume the ability to get money from the property owner’s insurance. If there were evidence of shared blame, the injured party might be deprived of compensation.