Home insurance Personal liability cover

tishu

Hello
I have a home insurance that includes personal liability with the following wording:

We will pay up to £2,000,000 to cover your legal liability for damages you have to pay if someone makes a claim against you for:
• accidental death or illness of, or bodily injury to, any person
• accidental loss of or damage to property. that happens within the period of insurance on your schedule.
This will also include costs, expenses and legal fees for defending you, if we have agreed this in writing.
This section covers liabilities arising from you occupying your property. Any liability that arises solely from you owning your home, not as occupier of the property, is not covered under this section. However if you have our Buildings cover, this covers liabilities arising from you owning your home.

I do wonder if this would cover a cycling accident that happened outside my home. Talking to the insurer (Direct line) it seems that it would be he did not give a definitive answer and I am anxious while waiting to hear back. The doubt comes from, "This section covers liabilities arising from you occupying your property" - this is quite a generic term that occurs in many policies. Does it mean the incident needs to have taken place while I am physically inside the property, or is it a more generic way of saying it does not cover things that a home owner (building insurance) would cover?

Many thanks

davidmcn

It means liabilities due by you as an occupier of the property (e.g. visitors slipping on your garden path, being electrocuted in your shower, etc), not things you do while away from the property like having a cycling accident.
It also appears to be just from a summary of the policy, you'd need to check the full policy wording.

tishu

Thanks. This is from the full policy wording there is no more detailed wording from what I see. There are exclusions but none refers to incidents happening outside the property.

Also I should add that the policy says Personal Liability not Occupiers liability and I understand that the first one follows me outside my home. 

dacouch

It includes personal liability and will include liability if you were negligent in the incident you mention
It would be unusual for (I assume a motorist) bothering to sue a cyclist

Aretnap

It is admittedly badly worded but my reading is the same as Dacouch's; the section covers general personal liability INCLUDING occupier's liability but NOT INCLUDING owner's liability. So it does cover you for liability arising from incidents outside the home (including cycling accidents, unless there's a specific cycling exclusion). It would be highly unusual for the personal liability section of a contents policy not to do so.

The current version of Direct Line's policy documents on their website is worded better and makes clear that the section covers general personal liability.

Liabilities arising from you occupying your home and your personal liabilities as a private individual in and away from your home.

We will pay up to £2,000,000 to cover your legal liability for damages you have to pay if someone makes a claim against you during the period of insurance for:

accidental death or illness of, or bodily injury to, any person;

accidental loss of or damage to property.

This will also include costs, expenses and legal fees for defending you, if we have agreed this in writing.

Any liability that arises solely from you owning your home is not covered under this section. However, you may have cover under ‘Property owner’s liability’ if you have our Buildings cover.

tishu

Thank you I had seen the latest version dated March 4th 2020 mentioning explicitly being outside the property but I was not sure if it was just a wording update or a change in cover. 

TELLIT01

dacouch said:

It includes personal liability and will include liability if you were negligent in the incident you mention
It would be unusual for (I assume a motorist) bothering to sue a cyclist

Why not?  A bike ridden at speed into a car can do a considerable amount of damage.  If the collision is the cyclist's fault why should the motorist not seek to recover their costs from the person at fault?  (I've no idea of the background to this thread, so not suggesting that to be the situation here)

davidmcn

TELLIT01 said:

dacouch said:

It would be unusual for (I assume a motorist) bothering to sue a cyclist

Why not?  A bike ridden at speed into a car can do a considerable amount of damage.  If the collision is the cyclist's fault why should the motorist not seek to recover their costs from the person at fault?

I would have thought more likely that a pedestrian (or another cyclist) would be pursuing for injuries caused, though yes, even relatively trivial damage to vehicles can be costly to rectify.