You know that you need insurance. It’s an essential part of living a responsible life and a smart way to secure and protect the things that matter most.
The difficulty is that sometimes insurance can be laced with fancy phrases and terms that you may not know. That’s why we’ll be continuing a blog favorite over the next few weeks with “4 MORE Insurance Terms You Should Know” just to make things a little easier.
This week’s term is…
Act of God - Often misunderstood and misused, this term means an accident or event resulting from natural causes, without human intervention or agency, and one that could not have been prevented by reasonable foresight or care - for example, floods, lightning, earthquake, or storms.
However, the most common place we see this term may be when a tree falls on someone’s house or car. At least a few times per year, we receive a call from someone stating either that their tree fell on somebody’s something, or that the neighbor’s tree fell on something of theirs.
Either way, the conversation seems to turn to this.
Caller: “Am I going to get sued?” or “should I sue them?”
Agency: “Did you (or your neighbor) knock the tree down?”
Caller: “No.”
Agency: “Then it’s an act of God, and no lawsuit should come about.”
(Someone could try to sue God for knocking down the tree, but where would you serve the paperwork?)
Of course, there are variations in the situation and each occurrence is handled uniquely and thoroughly.
As for the damage: If you have comprehensive coverage on your vehicle, or the proper home insurance protection (depending on what the tree landed on), insurance could potentially pay out for your loss.
The moral of the story is that sometimes things are out of our control and may need to treated as such.
Make sure to check in on our blog next week for the second installment of 4 MORE Insurance Terms You Should Know. If you missed the first four terms, you can find them and other great blog posts here.