Lachlan Nisbet, a leading firearms lawyer, highlights the necessity of insurance for shooters. Nisbet stresses the importance of public liability, personal accident and legal expenses insurance to protect against injuries, property damage and legal issues. With an increase in certificate refusals and revocations, comprehensive insurance is crucial.
Shooting remains, by all metrics and statistics, a very safe sport. I suspect that this is primarily because we are, by and large, a disciplined bunch into whom the safe handling of weapons has been drummed – often from a very early age.
The adage is however that ‘accidents do happen’ and of course the problem for us is that when accidents involving firearms happen, the consequences can be serious.
Employers and those organising shooting activities are subject to a host of regulatory requirements relating to health and safety and in the main they are alive to commercial realities and risk such that they will routinely carry suitable insurances for their business’s activities. Often referred to as D’n’O (Directors and Officers) cover, senior people will protect themselves as individuals against certain additional liabilities too. But what about individuals?
I think most shooters ‘get’ the idea that using a firearm without insurance is a spectacularly bad idea. This sort of public liability cover reflects the readily understood risks of injuring people or causing damage to property when using a firearm.
Risk in our field is not limited to people and property. We hold firearms and shotgun certification for a reason, and these certificates can be put at risk when something goes wrong. We can insure the activities we undertake, but how can we protect our certificates?
Accidents, incidents and allegations all have the potential to see the police knocking at our door and to see us subject to formal interviews and suitability reviews – often taking many months, sometimes years.
The distinction between different types of insurance cover is often not well understood and can lead to shooters having a false sense of security and being uninsured when it matters most.
Types of insurance
I therefore recommend that anyone who picks up a gun should consider three principal insurance products: public liability insurance; personal accident insurance; and legal expenses insurance.
Public liability cover will typically respond to provide an indemnity when the acts of the shooter (provided lawful) have caused injury to someone and / or damage to something. Even the most cautious shooters can have accidents that result in significant damage, whether to people or property.
Personal accident cover responds when the shooter is injured as a result of an accident while shooting and can include injuries to their limbs, sight or hearing. Coverage under each scheme varies by factors such as the extent of the injury caused, the length of hospital stay, and loss of earnings for the time spent recuperating. In the main these policies attract a lower limit than public liability insurance as the scope this insurance covers is narrower and insurers wish to avoid adverse incentives to shooters who are in financial difficulty.
Legal expenses cover varies by policy to policy, but this will usually cover shooters in the event that their certificates are revoked, or their certificate application is refused outright by the relevant police force.
The Home Office’s statistics for the year to March 2023 shows that there were 196 refusals of FAC applications, 654 refusals for SGC applications and 140 refusals for coterminous certificate applications. Added to that 418 firearm certificates were revoked, and 1,161 shotgun certificates revoked, representing 9 per cent and 8 per cent (respectively) increases on the same period in the prior year. Whilst many of these decisions may have been sound and perhaps completely unchallengeable, this amounts to some 2,569 adverse decisions in one 12-month period, showing an upward trajectory that is likely attributable to recent events.
In the same way that we all consider ourselves to be careful drivers unlikely to come to the attention of the law, very few of my clients expected to find themselves in the position of being deprived of a certificate. My team and I still deal with hundreds of such cases every year, so think carefully – the boundaries of what the police consider relevant to your own suitability are continually being pushed and on recent evidence there is clearly a far greater appetite to interfere.
When balancing the likely costs of appeal proceedings against the very modest annual costs of legal expense cover, you might consider taking such cover as an absolute ‘no-brainer!’.
Some legal expense policies will also cover the costs of criminal investigations into firearms-related offences, aimed at ensuring that legal advice is available to the insured from the earliest possible contact with the local police force .
While insurance cannot prevent a refusal or revocation decision, it takes the financial risk out of the calculation for a shooter with a strong case who wishes to challenge a police force. Legal expenses insurance cover will almost always be subject to a ‘merit assessment’, which in short form means that insurers will only look to fund cases which they are advised have a greater than 50 per cent prospect of success on appeal.
Like it or not, shooters are going to have to accept that post-Keyham the licensing landscape has toughened considerably. Forces are struggling under huge volumes of review cases placing lots of certificate holders in the no man’s land where their weapons and certificates have been seized, but where they can’t get any sense from the licensing team of the length of a delay nor force the police to progress matters.
Trade members need to think also about the risks presented to their registrations. I don’t need to point out the consequences of removal from the register. There are insurances to cater specifically for this situation, too.
Understanding the limits
Insurance policies will often exclude coverage, understandably, where the shooter’s acts are deliberate or reckless to risk, or where the shooter has acted unlawfully. Insurers will usually refuse to insure for events which have already taken place so if, for example, the police have chosen to revoke a certificate there is no benefit to taking out legal expenses insurance in order to appeal that decision – you’d be wasting your money because the claim would simply be refused.
Insurers are also minded to the circumstances of events so may not cover certain categories of shooting or certain locations.
As above, where a matter is contentious, insurance funding is usually contingent on the insured having a reasonable prospect of success. Where evidence is available that these prospects dip below 50 per cent insurance, coverage is withdrawn sometimes mid-way through the case. Likewise, if the insured refuses to accept a reasonable settlement offer, insurance coverage is also likely to be withdrawn.
Get in touch
0151 600 3420
07955 200 607
lachlan.nisbet@brabners.com
www.brabners.com
Nothing within the article should be taken as advice with regard to the purchase of insurance cover of any type. Insurance should be procured via an authorised route, such as through a regulated insurance broker.
