Liability insurance isn’t just for homeowners.
Emporia insurance agents say property owners and renters need liability insurance, whether the property contains structures or is devoted to cropland or pasture. Such insurance helps protect owners and renters of unimproved properties from the costs of damage and injuries caused by accidents or fires.
“Most insurance agents will ask you, ‘Do you own any land? Is it pasture? Does it have buildings on it?’” said Reta Jackson, agent at Bluestem Insurance Group.
Property owners and renters may be held in some way responsible for hunting accidents, uncontrolled fires that damage, unauthorized parties and other incidents that occur on their unimproved properties.
“Even if they’re hunting without permission, you should always have that liability insurance in place for any property that you own like that,” Jackson said.
People who acquire unimproved property may not think to contact an insurance agent. Although mortgage-holders require borrowers to maintain homeowners insurance on mortgaged property, that often is not a requirement for unimproved property.
“Usually if they have a mortgage on the (improved) property, they’re going to have to have insurance on it,” said Connie Cahoone, senior vice president at First Community Bank.
Unimproved property is considered differently.
“A lot of times you just have liability on that type of thing,” she said. Banks don’t require insurance on pastures, for example, “because there’s really nothing to insure there, other than liability, and we don’t even require that.
“I personally think everybody ought to have liability on their property. It’s a smart thing to do.”
Jackson agreed.
“A good responsible insurance agent will ask you those questions,” Jackson said. “It’s not that we’re trying to be nosy. We’re trying to make sure you have the insurance that you need to protect you.”
Liability insurance will pay not only for the owner’s or renter’s losses, it can cover losses caused as a result of something that happened on that property.
“If you start a fire and it goes over on somebody else’s land — if you haven’t taken all the necessary precautions to make sure that isn’t going to happen — then they possibly could find you liable and your insurance would pay, too,” she said. “They would be insured. It would be a claim against your liability insurance.”
On the other side of the coin, people who suffer property damages from actions caused by others should be protected by those others’ liability policies.
Perry Ott, agent with Farm Bureau Insurance, said that the other person’s basic homeowner policy or farm/ranch-type policy should provide protection for the neighbors.
“That goes back to his negligence, so his liability would cover that,” Ott said.
The protection would be limited to the maximum amount of the other person’s liability insurance. If an out-of-control pasture fire spreads to adjoining property and destroys a $150,000 home, and the other person has liability insurance only up to $100,000 loss, the victim’s additional losses would be covered — up to his or her own limits — by his or her own insurance.
“If the damages exceed the liability limit, then basically what would happen, you would turn your home claim over to your insurance company,” Ott said. “We won’t let him pay you directly. We will say, ‘Okay, it’s a total loss. We’re paying you for that, we’re going after him.’ We’re not going to piecemeal it. ...
“Liability is just the best protection. It’s pretty inexpensive and it can save everything that you’ve built over the years. You protect your assets ... and that’s what it’s for.”