Firearms

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Larry Harb: 

So, think about this and look at your general liability policies to make sure they cover you for firearms. I’m gonna tell you a quick firearm story, alright? Auctioneer calls me up. I’m writing this auctioneer, we insure them—said, Larry, I got a problem. I just got a letter from an attorney. And I’m being sued. Well, send me the letter. Well, she sends me the letter and I call her back up. I said, Betty, you know—name really wasn’t Betty, but, Betty, this letter has your name on it but a company that I don’t recognize. She says, yeah, that was my company from when I was married before with my husband. Okay? And what did the letter say? The letter said, basically—it was to Betty and the company name—but the letter said, you know, dear Betty, you did this auction on such-and-such a date, yada, yada, yada, you sold this firearm. Well, our client committed suicide. Okay? Oh, but he didn’t kill himself, okay? Here’s the story. Betty sold the estate out. The neighbor kid bought the shotgun—Mossberg 500 shotgun. The neighbor kid loaned it to his buddy and the buddy went out and committed suicide. Didn’t kill himself, just maimed himself for life. What were they doing? This was a five-year-old auction. All they were doing was looking for the money. And so, they’re suing the auctioneer ‘cause the auctioneer sold the firearm. Where was the coverage? My comment to Betty was, well Betty, did you have insurance back then? She said, yeah. I said, by any chance do you have the documents, the policy? She said, I might. I said, send it to me. And she did, and I was able to go back to that old insurance company because it just so happens, general liability policies are written on what’s called an occurrence basis, which means when the event occurred, if we were covering you, we’ll cover it today. We went back to that old insurance company and they defended her. They got her out of the suit, okay? But it still cost money. So that’s the importance, in my opinion, of: A, making sure you have coverage; B, knowing where the coverage is; and C, making sure you deal with people that understand what it is you do. Because at the end of the day, I’m your advocate, okay?