What Do I Do If Someone Gets Injured In My Home?
First, stay calm. Freaking out won’t help anyone. Whenever there’s an accident everyone gets hyper and tense; being calm will be a blessing to everyone. Plus; it’s your house. You’re supposed to lead. Calm everyone down, determine the injuries and or damage.
Second: call the police and medical assistance (if needed). While we said for you to determine the injuries and damage – and it’s nice if you can get pictures of it for future reference – you have to call the police to file an accident report and medical assistance to take care of it. If it’s something you can take care of with a first-aid kit, tell the victim the house has a first-aid kit (you better have it; it’s an essential home item) and, if they want, you can perform the first-aid or they can do it themselves if they prefer.
Step number 3 is politely limiting the discussion - especially if it’s something big. Talk only with the police or your insurance agent. Don't admit liability or fault on the scene of the accident. Try to resolve everything and take care of everyone but position yourself as a helpful person, not a guilty one. Calm everyone, say it’s not the time to discuss that, only to make sure everyone is safe and sound.
Step number 4 is getting the facts right. Write down names, addresses, phone numbers, insurance companies of the individuals involved and witnesses. This is important for when the liability insurance policy kicks in.
Lastly, call your insurance agent to report the accident and go over with him or her all the details of exactly what happened and how it happened.
From there on, everything will probably run independently from you. With a few calls from your insurance agency if you’re unlucky. If the victim calls you regarding anything related to the accident, refer them to your insurance agent and say you were advised to do that.
If it’s the other way around and you’re the one who gets injured in someone else’s home: stay calm, call the police and medical assistance - if you can’t do it yourself, ask someone to call it for you. Get all the info you can and contact your lawyer as soon as you can.
Now that you’ve read what to do if someone gets injured in your home: did you realize you don’t know that much home insurance? Read our home insurance guide to learn more!
Popular Insurance Questions
Popular Insurance Glossary Terms
Federal statute that permits the self-employed a 100% tax deduction for the family health care expenses to include health insurance premiums, disability INCOME insurance premiums, and ...
Placement of verbal descriptive information into numerical form for the purposes of analysis. ...
Those states requiring insurers to obtain prior approval rating of rates and policy forms before they use them. Although most states once fell into this category, many followed the lead of ...
The definition of special acceptance explains how two insurance institutions work together for the benefit of the masses. In order to define what special acceptance means, we must ...
U.S. government agency that administers life insurance, health insurance, welfare, mortgage loans, education, pension benefits, and other programs for veterans of the U.S. armed forces. ...
Insurance company formed according to the legal requirements of a foreign country. In order for an alien insurer to be able to carry on general operations and sell its products in a ...
Agreement under which an insurance company promises to pay all compensation and all benefits required of an insured employer under the workers compensation act of the state or states listed ...
Display of percentage of earned premiums as a function of the time in days for term property insurance policies originally written for one year or longer. These tables are used to compute ...
Payments made on a monthly basis by users of the medical services of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). After this payment is calculated for a future period of time, usually one year, ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.