Accidental Means

What Is Accidental Means?

Accidental means is a condition for losses covered under a insurance policy that requires the loss to have been the consequence of an accident, as opposed to the consequence of a non-accident. As a condition, accidental means is intended to shield insurers from being required to pay claims on events that were not accidents.

Grasping Accidental Means

Insurers utilize "accident" to depict an event that happens inadvertently, and which is startling or unexpected. Accidental means might include acts that caused damage or mischief, yet which were themselves accidental. Both the injury and the event must be viewed as accidents for a claim to be covered. Accidental means is an exact definition of "accident", and is stricter than just characterizing an accident as an unanticipated event.

Insurance policies for substantial mischief or death frequently incorporate a provision that requires the death or injury to be brought about by outside, savage, and accidental means. Accidental means considers both the circumstances and logical results of the event, instead of just the consequence of the event.

For instance, a construction worker with a accidental death and dismemberment policy who is harmed would need to (1) not realize that the risk of an activity would bring about a loss, and (2) not realize that any events leading up to that activity could bring about a loss. Assuming that worker were to utilize a machine that they knew had defective wiring and was shocked, then, at that point, they wouldn't receive a benefit since they ought to have realized that they could be harmed in view of the wiring problem.

Insurance Policy Language Reference to Accidental Means

A common clause in an insurance policy that gives coverage to accidental death means could peruse, "Due proof that the death of the insured happened subsequently, straightforwardly and independently of any remaining causes, of substantial wounds effected exclusively through outside, vicious, and accidental means..."

Whether a given event is covered relies on how the pertinent jurisdiction understands "outer, rough, and accidental means." "Savage" and "outside" generally qualify the concept of "accidental means," and the courts are in broad agreement on that definition.

Special Consideration

A few states think about substantial injury policies that utilization the words "accidental means" to be not quite the same as those that notice "accidental injury." [Court cases](/precedent-based regulation) may depend on whether the phrasing of the policy infers that the insurer has liability for the reason for the accident (death or injury from accidental means), or on the other hand assuming the liability is dependent on the effect (injury or death).

Features

• "Accidental means" is a term involved by insurance companies in their policies to decline paying out claims that outcome from non-accidents.
• A few states think about substantial injury policies that utilization the words "accidental means" to be not quite the same as those that notice "accidental injury."
• Insurance policies for substantial damage or death frequently incorporate a provision that requires the death or injury to be brought about by outer, fierce, and accidental means.
• Both the injury and the event must be viewed as accidents for a claim to be covered under the definition of "accidental means."