tenants injury case and liability insurance

[Tina21]

What is the name of your state? MD

the tenant broke his leg on my rental property and his lawyer has asked me to contact my insurance to have them contact him which i did. I do have liability, so i think I should be covered. Or am I? My question is:

Can my insurance reject the claim and say I am not covered?

what if the insurance company accept the claim but decided to pay less than what the lawyer is asking, or even not pay at all based on the fact that the claim is not legit, can the tenants come after me/my assets?

thanks.

 

[seniorjudge]

Q: Can my insurance reject the claim and say I am not covered?

A: Yes.



Q: what if the insurance company accept the claim but decided to pay less than what the lawyer is asking, or even not pay at all based on the fact that the claim is not legit, can the tenants come after me/my assets?

A: Yes.

 

[Tina21]

under what circumstances may they reject my policy? Will they try to find stupid excuses .. for example, could they say that becasue my house has the type of plastic piping that they do not cover and that I never told them and becasue of it they will not pay tenants anything .. even though the piping on the house has notthing to do with the tenants claim .. how/what can they find to reject me.

Thanks.

 

[seniorjudge]

I have no idea why an insurance carrier would reject a claim.

 

[tammy8]

I think my landlord's policy excludes tenets. Check your policy.

 

[moburkes]

That's something that I never realized, Tammy.

OP - they would deny the claim if its not legitimate. just because he broke his leg on your property doesn't mean that you were negligent. Your insurance company will pay up to your liability limits. If the claim is worth more, which I can't imagine, since you have at least $100k in liability, then you are responsible for the rest.

But, yes, they could deny the claim on the basis that, had they known about the pipes, and you obviously were lying about the type (which I'm not really understanding what the big deal is), they never would have insured you - that is called material misrepresentation.

An insurance company can deny a claim based on the fact that you purposely ommitted or lied about something that, had they known, they wouldn't have issued the policy in the first place.

However, if the pipes really are a big deal (again, I don't know what the problem is), they'd likely pay the claim, then nonrenew you.

 

[JustAPal00]

Mo,

For them to deny it based material misrepresentation, wouldn't the claim have to have something to do with the misrepresentation? I mean insurance companies would be denying claims all day long. They could deny someones theft loss because the insured failed to mention that the paint was peeling on the windows, or a fire loss because of a junked car in the yard! I would think that if the policy was in force at the time of the loss they would have to pay the claim as long as it had nothing to do with the incorrect information. After the fact they might be immediatly canceled. What are your thoughts?