Falling ice poses hazard, liability

Either from sheer weight or the temperatures beginning to rise, ice has been dropping from roofs. Underfoot, it poses a different danger. Alan Foust, who works at his wife Janey's American Family Insurance office in Jackson, said he expects to hear from clients soon.

After February's ice storms, he said, hundreds filed damage and injury claims. After this week's storm, he heard from one person, who had fallen on ice at a relative's home, he said.

Liability for ice damage depends on how and where it happens, he said.

If a block of ice falls from a business's building onto a car, for instance, the claim should be filed with the company that insures the car, he said. The same is true if a chunk of ice fell from a freeway overpass, he said.

"You could sue [the business], but it's kind of an act of God. That's an easy out for a commercial policy," he said.

Slip-and-fall accidents are covered differently.

"Every commercial policy and every homeowners policy has a liability component, and they have medical payment component," he said.

Homes typically have between $1,000 and $5,000, while commercial insurance policies generally allow $5,000, he said.

The money helps pay for immediate medical care "and helps keep the person who got hurt from suing."

"To be realistic, if the ice falls off a building, you can go get a lawyer and sue. But whether it will pay or not, that's up to the adjuster and the lawyers or, if it goes to court, the judge," he said.

If a person is visiting the home and suffers and ice-related injury, that could be covered.

"If a homeowner hurts himself getting ice off the roof, that's on him. He better have health insurance," Faust said.

Every insurance claim is checked out, he said, and rarely do people file false reports. But it does happen.

Last year, he said, one client tried to claim a $12,000 loss for a shed that collapsed under the weight of ice from the February storms.

"It wasn't a building we would have insured anyway," Foust said. "But it was on his brother's property."

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

388-3646