Teen Driver Ends Up Costing Parents Because Lack of Third Party Liability Insurance

Getting your first car is pretty awesome and taking it out on that first drive alone is even better. I remember back when I got my first car. My parents sat me down and gave me all these rules and reminded me of all sort of driving rules, including not texting while driving and no fumbling with the radio while driving. They might as well have been telling me about little blue aliens because that is how much attention I was paying them. All I was thinking about was taking my new car for a spin.

Of course, I got in the car and back out of the driveway slowly, since I knew they were watching me. And instead of heading to movie theater, which is where I told them I was going, I set off to the mall. No way did I want to spend two hours in the theater when I could drive a little further into town and go to the mall.

Getting on the busy freeway was not that bad, so I was feeling pretty good about my driving skills. I decided that I needed a soundtrack for my trip and started looking for good driving music on the radio. I finally found a good song and looked up just in time to see the stopped cars before I hit them.

Despite the fact that I was going a little fast, I managed to get out of the car with just a few bumps and bruises. One of the passengers of the cars in front of me wasn’t so lucky and had a broken arm. I had to exchange car insurance info with everyone while I waited for the police and my parents to arrive on the scene.

As soon as we got home, I was grounded for lying about where I was going and causing the accident. A few weeks later, that grounding was extended because our car insurance did not have enough coverage for the medical bills of all the other people. And since my parents did not have a separate public liability insurance policy, they had to pay out of pocket for all those extra expenses. My parents also made me get a job and turn over all the money to them for the medical bills.

Landscaping Business – Ruined by Lack of Public Liability Cover

My dad has worked in landscaping for as long as I can remember. Growing up, our driveway was always filled with his trailer full of the lawn equipment. His business was something that he had started right out of school, with no formal business training or education. And it was almost all lost as a result of him not knowing about public liability insurance.

While he did have some commercial clients, the majority of clients that my dad has always had were residential customers. This means that his work weeks have mostly consisted of him driving with his trailer full of equipment into different residential neighborhoods and working on the lawns of different families. If those families had the room, he would park his truck and trailer in their driveway. Often they did not have enough space, so he would end up parking the truck and trailer on the side of the road in front of or near the house he was working at for the day.

It was at one of the homes with a large, long driveway that the accident happened. The home was large with an equally large amount of land around it. My dad was around the rear of the house while his trailer and truck were parked in the front circle driveway. Three kids lived in the house and one had managed to sneak away from the parents and go outside.

My dad heard the crying and ran around the house to find that the kid had manage to cut himself on some of the equipment that was in the yard. The parents came out around the same time and rushed the little guy to the emergency room. Fortunately, he was not hurt too bad, but the injuries did require an overnight stay at the hospital.

Even though the parents were not watching the kid when he came outside and got hurt, my dad was deemed responsible for the medical bills. Actually, his business was the liable party. Since he did not have any public liability insurance, my family had to pay out of pocket for those bills. It was a large amount, but it could have been a lot worse if the injury had been more severe. After that experience, he made sure to get insurance coverage for future jobs.

Lack Of Public Liability Insurance Forced Us Into A Smaller Home

When I was growing up, my dad worked as a contractor doing home renovations around our small Queensland town, and the neighbouring city. He was good at it and developed a great repuation. He worked a lot and was always at a new home doing repairs and renovations.

While he was technically self-employed, he didn’t really have any business experience. My mom had taken a couple of business and accounting classes a long time ago and she took care of the business side of things for him. The truth is that neither of them had much knowledge when it came to running a business. They did not know that something as simple as an accident could have a major effect on the business and change all of our lives.

As a result of that, we ended up having to move to a smaller house when I was around 12 years old. The move happened because neither of them knew about public liability insurance, which means my dad didn’t have any for his business. And that is not a position you want to be in when an accident happens.

He was hired to lay some bricks on the exterior of a home when the accident happened. The homeowner just happened to come outside at the exact moment that a piece of brick fell off the scaffolding my dad was on. From that height, it did quite a number on the owner of the house. My dad had to take him to the hospital because he was bleeding so much.

Within a few weeks, my dad got sued for the medical fees. He didn’t have liability insurance to cover it. In fact, he only learned about its existence when he went to a lawyer to determine if he was actually liable for the guy’s bills. Of course, he was legally liable.

To pay those bills, my parents had to sell our house. We ended up moving to a cheap rental home because the bills had practically bankrupt my family. Fortunately, my dad was still able to get work doing renovations. Of course, he did not take any new jobs until he got some liability coverage.

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