Liability Insurance

[Guest HexHead]

having a insurance policy to insure my insurance policy doesn't make good sense to me. but then again the law or legal system doesn't make good sense either.

You're not insuring your insurance policy, you're extending your limits. Most homeowners policies only offer up to $300k or 500k of liability coverage and auto policies typically max out at $250/500k. An umbrella extends those limits to $1 million or above.

[Guest jackdm3]

Diggit. What kills me is that they say a self-defense shooting (which to me is reactionary) is "intentional."

[Guest don_m]

Diggit. What kills me is that they say a self-defense shooting (which to me is reactionary) is "intentional."

This is the very reason that a plaintiff in a civil suit will often try to claim that the shooting was an accident ("hair triggers" and disabled safeties play into this argument). They want to get into the deep pockets of your insurance company.

A justifiable self defense shooting is by definition intentional. There's no such thing as "not guilty by reason of self defense." The first step in your "affirmative defense" is to admit that you intentionally committed a crime (shooting someone is a serious crime everywhere) -- and then that you were legally justified in doing so as the lesser of the evils. If the prosecutor can convince a jury that it was accidental, self defense goes out the window and you're likely to go down for manslaughter.

If you're ever in a SD shooting and are charged, you need to make very sure that your attorney understands this -- most criminal attorneys never see a self defense case and their normal process of dealing with the DA (like pushing for a manslaughter change instead of murder) can nullify your self defense claim and put you in a VERY bad position.