Whether it’s in front of your house or someone else’s, slipping on ice and falling can be a painful experience for the person who slipped, and possibly also for the homeowner.
If the slip and fall leads to injuries, the homeowner may have to pay the medical bills of the injured person, and may be sued for negligence for leaving the ice and snow on their sidewalk or walkway. A claim on a homeowners insurance policy could be made, possibly requiring deductibles to be paid and higher insurance premiums down the road. But will a homeowners insurance policy cover such slips?
First, prevent slips
Broken ankles from slipping on ice while wearing high-heel shoes or other shoes that don’t grab well on ice can send wearers to a hospital emergency room. Elderly people who slip and fall can break their hips.
One out of five falls — for whatever reason — causes a serious injury such as broken bones or a head injury among people 65 and older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year 2.8 million older people are treated in emergency departments for injuries from falls, the CDC says.
Shoveling driveways and paths so they’re clear can prevent them from freezing over. Doing this can be key to determining if you’re liable if someone falls on your property.
What home insurance usually covers
Liability insurance is meant to protect a home from liability for an accident or other unknown event. This type of coverage is called third party coverage and protects against bodily injury and property damage based on the insured’s acts, such as a slip and fall accident.
If someone is injured on your property, liability coverage in a homeowners insurance policy is used to protect you from lawsuits for bodily injury. It pays to defend you in court and any court awards up to the limit stated in your policy.
Liability limits usually start at about $100,000, according to the Insurance Information Institute. If you have significant assets, you may want to buy an umbrella policy or an excess liability policy through your insurer.
A homeowners policy can also provide no-fault medical coverage. If someone is injured on your property, they can submit medical bills to your insurance company.
Defining negligence
If an injured person does sue you, your homeowners insurance would be the first place they would try to collect money from. They’d likely have to prove that your negligence led to the slippery fall.
Simply falling on someone’s property doesn’t mean the homeowner was negligent. Without negligence, an insurance policy probably won’t cover a claim.
While the medical payments provision of the homeowner’s insurance will cover some of the medical bills of the injured person, the homeowner isn’t liable unless they were negligent.
The main measure is if the property was unreasonably unsafe. Homeowners are expected to remove the ice and snow and make a sidewalk or path reasonably safe. Homeowners who do this could be less likely to be held liable by juries in cold weather areas, where ice and snow is considered a known hazard of winter life.
In legal terms, property owners have a duty to protect (also called a “duty of care”) obligation to keep their property save and hazard-free. Walkways, driveways, parking lots and other common areas are to be kept clear of ice and snow.
A property owner must also do everything within reason to protect people legally on their property from injury, according to the website Injury Claim Coach. They must take reasonable action to remove foreseeable dangers.
From the injured person’s side, there’s something called “contributory negligence” to consider. This is when the injured person did something that contributed to their injuries, and can give the property owner less liability.
How much snow is too much?
There are no legal rules on how much snow and ice there must be to determine a property owner’s negligence, or how much time they have to remove the hazard before they’re liable.
The Injury Claim Coach website gives the example of it snowing overnight and ice accumulating on a homeowner’s sidewalk. A pedestrian walking there in the early morning slips on the ice and is injured. Is the homeowner liable?
Ice isn’t as obvious a danger as a pothole, and ice can form in a few hours and melt away just as quickly. The probability of people walking on residential sidewalks is another factor for liability, especially in the early morning if a homeowner isn’t expected to clear a sidewalk by 7 a.m.
Maybe that snowplow you were thinking of buying is worth the investment anyway.
Aaron Crowe is a freelance journalist who covers the insurance industry. He also specializes in personal finance writing. Follow him on Twitter @AaronCrowe.