While there is insurance for people who carry permitted concealed handguns, specifically to pay of legal costs and potential liability (e.g., see here), a number of states have been considering legislation mandating that people who own guns be mandated to have liability insurance in case their guns cause any harm (in 2013, gun liability insurance bills were filed in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.). Chicago is now dealing with such an insurance proposal. Fox Business had this useful discussion:
“Insurance ends at the point of intention,” explains Lynne McChristian, the Florida spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. “Firing a weapon is (usually) an intentional act, and no insurance covers an intentional act. You can’t decide to drive your car into your neighbor’s vehicle and expect your insurance company to cover it.” . . .
“The data I’ve seen shows that not even 2% of gun deaths would be classified as accidental; the vast majority are either suicides or homicides,” [Peter Kochenburger, executive director of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut School of Law] says. “So right there you have roughly 98% of gun deaths that would have no liability coverage due to the intentional acts exclusion.”
In fact, Kochenburger says insurers have a major reason not to wade into covering firearms.
“There’s what’s called a ‘moral hazard’ that applies to all aspects of insurance, which says if you insure (dangerous) behavior, you are in some sense encouraging it because people will be less careful knowing they have coverage if they are negligent,” he says. . . .
Russell Roberts, an economics fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, suspects that advocates of gun liability insurance may have a simple goal in mind.
“To me, insurance is just a fancy way to discourage gun ownership by raising the cost of owning a gun,” he says. “I don’t think that’s a good idea because not everybody obeys the law. You would raise the cost for law-abiding citizens to own a gun without having any impact on those who illegally own a gun.”
That’s precisely the position taken on the issue by gun rights groups, which oppose mandatory insurance. To address insurance concerns of its members, the National Rifle Association offers policies through Lloyd’s of London that include coverage for civil and criminal defense costs “should the unthinkable happen” — meaning a gun owner fires in self-defense. . . .
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