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As the nation reels from yet another school shooting, calls for gun control or arming more people with guns abound. There are also calls for requiring gun owners to have liability insurance; unfortunately, it is not that easy. No insurance policy is going to provide coverage for intentional acts. Insurance is a transfer of risk, and the risk must be from a fortuitous loss, not a deliberate action. An insured cannot set his house on fire and expect the insurance to cover it, although there are those who try. Such actions are arson and insurance fraud.

 If an insured's gun is stolen, there is coverage in the standard homeowners form for $2,500 for theft of firearms and related equipment. This is physical damage cover for the gun itself, not liability coverage.

 The insured is not liable for the actions of the thief even if the gun can be traced back to the insured. The insured's liability coverage is only for damages for which the insured is legally liable. An insured is not apt to be considered legally liable for the actions of the thief who stole the insured's gun, even if the gun was laying on the dining room table. While the gun is technically insured, the thief who stole it in order to shoot people at a mall is not protected by the gun owner's policy, nor should he be.

 Expected or intended injury or property damage that is expected or intended by the insured is excluded, even if the injury or damage is different than expected or occurs to a different person than intended. An exception to this exclusion applies to injury or damage that results for the use of reasonable force by an insured to protect persons or property. The exception does not specify that the insured must be protecting himself, other insureds, or his property. An armed teacher who shoots at an active shooter is covered for any damages or injuries caused to others. Even medical payments for the shooter would be covered; no exclusion exists for injuries caused to someone who is acting illegally. This is the reverse of what most people expect when they want gun owners to have liability insurance; they expect the injured innocent parties to be covered if the insured becomes violent – that is not going to happen if the insured is intentionally shooting at people. If a bystander carries medical payments coverage on his policy and he shoots an active shooter, the active shooter can receive medical payments coverage from the bystander's policy.

 Note that the policy provides coverage for reasonable force to protect persons or property. What is reasonable force? If an insured shoots an unarmed person he perceives as a threat, is that reasonable force, or excessive force? It is going to make a difference. Having coverage does not mean an insured can fire a gun whenever he feels threatened and assume that there is some sort of coverage. If he uses excessive force, he will not be covered.

 There are policies for individuals with concealed carry permits. Like the homeowners policy, they provide coverage either for an insured protecting people or property, or for truly accidental shootings. Some policies covering truly accidental shootings do not even cover the intentional act of firing a weapon in self-defense. An endorsement can be added to those policies for self-defense, but it must be specifically added and is not automatic coverage. However, in light of the most recent shooting, Chubb LTD stated that they would quit underwriting the concealed carry coverage for the NRA, called Carry Guard, and Lockton Affinity stated that it would quit selling NRA endorsed products. Lockton has been administering the coverage for several years. This is significant in while insurance does not provide the coverage many people believe it does, this removal of support from the insurance industry indicates that any coverage may become harder to obtain.

 While insurance protects people from many types of losses, some things cannot be insured. The deliberate shooting of innocent people for whatever reason is one of those things. Even if the mental status of the active shooter was taken into account, it is unlikely that any carrier would provide coverage to the many wounded people under the standard homeowners or even a gun liability policy.

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