Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a companion during a quail hunt on a Texas ranch on Feb. 11, 2006 inevitably comes up when investigating the subject of insurance coverage for hunting exposures.
The vice president shot 78-year-old Henry Whittington with birdshot pellets from a 28-gauge Perazzi shotgun, prompting a media blitz at the time--including wide use of satirical images photo-shopping Mr. Cheney's face onto the body of cartoon hunter Elmer Fudd.
On a more serious note, however, Chris Heavrin, an underwriter for Markel, looking at the insurance implications of such hunting accidents, said that if a guide had been leading Vice President Cheney's hunting party, then that might have been a risk that Markel could have covered.
In that case, Mr. Heavrin said, the incident would have involved two guests in a shooting accident, and the policy would have defended the named insured for liability--but would not include coverage for the guest/client who did the shooting.
If the parties all belonged to a hunting club, Mr. Heavrin said, then the member-to-member exclusion would have kicked in.
However, under the same scenario for a policy that did not contain a member-to-member exclusion, as outlined by Glenn Sudol, vice president of underwriting for commercial lines at Gillingham & Associates, liability could be an issue.
Mr. Heavrin said that if the scenario did not include an organization of any kind, and merely involved a group of friends out hunting, then it is possible a liability claim could have been filed against the insurer that is covering the property--unless there is a specific exclusion for hunting.
A personal umbrella policy could also apply, Mr. Heavrin said, "unless [hunting is] specifically excluded in the underlying coverage of the umbrella's working policy."
While Vice President Cheney's mishap generated a media firestorm, Mr. Heavrin said such shooting accidents happen "once in a blue moon. You probably hear it on the news as often as it happens."
He said the majority of claims he sees are those involving ATV accidents, basic trips and falls, and falls from horses.
Morris Nelson, director at RB Jones, part of the H.W. Kaufman Financial Group, agreed that accidental shooting claims hardly ever arise. "In fact," he said, "I can't recall that I've ever seen one like that."
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