Ever seen the term legal liability on your travel insurance policy and wondered what it means? The short answer – you shouldn’t travel without it.

Sure, accidents happen on holiday. And when they happen to you personally, you only have yourself to think about in terms of recovering – be it physically or financially. But what happens when an accident that you caused impacts another person? Or their property?

What if you find yourself responsible, accidently of course – for putting someone in hospital, or worse? And what if the country you’re in love a good lawsuit, like the litigious USA or countries that target tourists with legal action to make a quick buck?

Or that if you make an innocent mistake that lands you in hot water simply because you didn’t know the rules and regulations of your holiday destination?

This, is where legal liability travel insurance cover steps in.

Legal liability benefit

Travel with Jane’s legal liability benefit covers you when you’re legally liable for causing damage to property, or injuring a person. This built-in cover is there to protect you from the financial burden of a claim made against you, by a third party. Not your travel companion, kids or relatives, but a third party completely separate from you.

Injuring a person and being held legally liable

Legal liability cover kicks in if you’re found to be responsible for injuring a person who is not a member of your family or travelling party. This means, you accidently hurt a complete stranger, and now the injured person has made a legal claim against you to pay for their hospital bills and other costs.

For instance, you inadvertently create a tripping hazard by leaving a heavy suitcase near the entrance of a hotel. A guest walks in and takes a bone-breaking tumble over your bag.

Travel with Jane will pay you if you injure someone or cause someone to die, during your trip. If you become legally liable to pay compensatory damages, or are required to pay reasonable legal costs and expenses for settling and defending a claim made against you, our legal liability is the benefit you’ll need.

Damaging property and being held legally liable

If during your trip you accidentally damage someone’s property, you’re going to want legal liability cover to pay for the costs of lawyers, and settlement.

Imagine accidentally setting your hotel room on fire because you left the iron on overnight? Or knocking over a priceless artifact in a museum with the swing of your handbag? The legal costs could run into the hundreds of thousands.

In cases where you accidentally damage a third party’s property, Travel with Jane will cover compensatory damages, legal costs and expenses for settling and defending a claim made against you.

Travel with Jane offers legal liability benefits across all levels of cover

The risk or become financially responsible for an accident – or even facing jail time during your travels overseas or here in Australia, is such a worry that most travel insurances include cover automatically.

If you need to make a claim to cover the costs of legal fees, a maximum payout of $3,500,000 is available on Saver, Basic, and Comprehensive cover.

For legal liability cases that happen in Australia during domestic travel, a payout of up to  $1,000,000 in available on Travel with Jane’s Domestic cover.

When you won’t be covered for legal liability costs

Travel with Jane offers legal liability cover for incidents that are purely accidental, and affect other parties. So to be clear, here are examples of when we won’t be able to cover you.

The injured party needs to be completely independent from you

Legal liability claims won’t work if the claim is for you, your travelling companion or a relative or employee of either of you.

damaged property is not yours

Legal liability claims won’t work if the claim relates to property belonging to you, or in your care or control. Similarly, the damaged property cannot belong to your travelling companion, a relative of yours, or an employee. This o

No Cars or guns

Legal liability claims won’t work if the claim against you relates to the use of any a car, or any other vehicle, aircraft, or firearms. So if you crash your rental car into someone’s front garden and do serious damage – you can’t claim for the payment of legal liability fees.

if a business is at fault

Legal liability claims won’t work if the claim against you arises from the conduct of a business. This includes you providing professional advice or a service. So if you’re travelling to exhibit at a tradeshow, and signage from your stand collapses and injures a client, who then goes on to claim damages against you – you won’t be covered by your travel insurance legal liability benefit.

Reckless behaviour

If you caused an accident due to reckless behaviour and willful disregard for the consequences , all responsibility lies with you and a legal liability claim won’t be possible. Similarly, we won’t cover claims related to assault, intentional harm or battery committed by you, or at your direction.

Spreading Disease

No one wants to hold the title of ‘super spreader’, and doubly so, as travel insurance won’t cover a legal claim made by a person you infected. In the topical case of you unknowingly spreading the coronavirus and then being sued for related hospital or quarantine costs – legal liability cover will unfortunately not count.

Very specific and strict conditions apply. Not all rules and exclusions have been listed here. Please see the Combined Product Disclosure Statement and Financial Services Guide for full details.

How to lodge a legal liability claim

The amount that we can pay out in the event of a third party legal liability claim, due to an accident, depends on the supporting evidence you can share with us.  If you need to submit a claim, these are the sorts of documents will need to see, if applicable:

• Medical report
• Police reports
• The deceased’s death certificate
• Court judgements
• Lawyers invoices

Remember, we’re here to support you, so if you find yourself in a situation where a claim is likely, get in touch with us as soon as possible, so that we may guide you on your next steps and about the information we’ll need for your claim.

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pexels