WWCOJ do? - Broken nose edition

A couple situations come to mind.  When my kids were playing at a friends' grandparents house maybe five or six years ago, my youngest son climbed a tree in their backyard and fell out, breaking his wrist.  I figured it might be possible to get their homeowner's insurance involved, but I decided I'd rather not do anything to strain relations and handled it all through medical insurance.  I'm sure the deductible cost me a chunk of change.  If money were really tight, I suppose I might have considered talking to them about their homeowner's policy.

When I was a kid, I broke my nose at a friend's house and required surgery.  I think my parent's just handled it all through medical.  Again, money wasn't a big issue for them, and we had been close with that family since I was just a toddler, so my folks undoubtedly felt it was best to handle matters without involving their insurance.

Sounds like it was an accident, and I'm sure he feels pretty bad about it already.  I guess if you choose to pursue it, you'd have to think it might have an impact on relations to some degree.  You have to decide how badly you care about the money compared to your daughter's relationship with her bf.

Yes his parents homeowners liability would most likely cover your out of pocket expenses. Now whether or not you want to push the issue of filing a claim on their insurance is up to you. Depends on the relationship between you and his parents I guess. Even if their insurance covers it, that is still a claim which may or may not cost them money in surcharges, may be worth a convo and a check with their insurance agent, then again may be best to leave it alone.

this.

this happened to my sister - she broke a tooth goofing around at a friend's house (who is actually now her husband!) and my mom was the psycho that went after his parents for the money.  s*** happens, especially if you can afford it, WHY would you go that route?  your daughter WILL hate you for that (at least temporarily, at most, she will still be talking about how ridiculous you are when she is 30)

Dude.......................no.

Happy to oblige! 

(lots of the interesting story deleted)

Definitely maybe! 

More of he story deleted.

While it can be argued that the boyfriend's family could be responsible.  It wasn't their fault you chose a high-deductible insurance plan nor that you haven't had other expenses this year.  If the situation were reversed, you would check with your insurance and offer to help them, but that is your choice.  How would you feel if they demanded or asked if you were going to help?  (Probably offended, I would be.)  If they offer to help and you later have other medical expenses, are you going to reimburse them for the medical costs they paid to benefit your family?  (Probably not, I wouldn't.) 

Imagine your two families are celebrating holidays together in 20 years?  How will you feel about this episode?  How will they feel?  If you want them to remember it, make a stink now...Some things are worth more than money IMO. 

Thanks for all the feedback guys.  The bolded is really the only reason I brought this up.  Without question if the roles were reversed I'd be calling my insurance to see if there was any way I could help them out with the expenses.  I obviously don't expect others to feel the same way I do, but I thought it warranted a discussion.  

I know several have used the words "go after them" here and I never meant to convey that at all if I did.  At the absolute most, assuming there was some liability, I would have simply asked them if they would be willing to check into it.  If they said no, then I'd leave it at that.

Based on the feedback here and just my general lack of wanting to have an uncomfortable conversation I plan to do use our insurance and leave it at that.  If they want to come in and offer to help, that's fine but I'm not going to ask for it.

I always enjoy seeing different perspectives on things like this which is why I asked.

Ask your daughter.

lol, he's a good kid.

I should also mention that his parents are both fitness instructors and could wrap me into a pretzel at a moments notice.  This also needs to be taken into account.  

I'm pretty much going to say what everyone else said... don't do it. She made her choice to go help him. He kicked and she got hit. It's an accident and she put herself in the position to get kicked in the face. She is responsible for her actions, which means you get to pay for all the medical bills. Unfortunately it's not her insurance or money, right? Maybe you have her pay you back through chores, etc.? It's a good life lesson for her to learn... taking responsibly for your actions and not suing someone else for your mistake. 

I think I'm probably the least likely person in this country to ever sue anyone.  

What if said boyfriend, during one of his many failed attempts at this handstand, all of a sudden had his arms give out and he face planted thus causing such severe damage to his nose and required the same surgery?  What would his parents have done?

Just playing devil's advocate.

I would never sue a family for the situation you described. 

Just some info to throw into the discussion...

Unfortunately Tony's homeowners insurance won't do anything in this situation. 

There are two coverages that could apply in this situation, Personal Liability, and Medical Payments. Most people carry between $1,000-$5,000 in medical payments coverage. Then liability ranges from $100k to $500k or even $1m in some cases. Many people incorrectly assume that the medical payments coverage would help here, but unfortunately it does not. If the kids' roles were reversed, it would apply. Medical payments coverage does not cover members of the household, so it would not cover his daughter. If the boyfriend was the one with the broken nose on Tony's property, his medical payments coverage could apply to the BF.

Medical payments coverage is a no fault coverage. So there does not have to be a designation of liability or a finding of fault for the coverage to pay out. It is designed for just such a situation, you can freely offer the coverage to a guest without admitting negligence on your part, usually to help with a health insurance deductible. 

For the personal liability coverage to apply, there has to be a finding of fault or negligence. So if your Aunt comes over for Thanksgiving and falls down the stairs, you can offer the medical payments coverage, the liability coverage would only apply if they could find you were negligent in some way, uneven stairs, no handrail, something like that.

So Tony is SOL as far as his home insurance is concerned. And the medical payments coverage from the BF's parents likely won't apply either as it did not happen at their home. So the only recourse is the BF's parents personal liability coverage. Which means they have to find the BF negligent and his parents legally liable.

So come on Tony... let's see the video of the event, we all know you have a camera down there somewhere!

bwaaahahahahaa!!!!   

My kids always seem to try and put us into goofy scenario's like that which result in me posting yet another dumb WWCOJD thread.  lol

If the situation you described occurred I would feel the same way about it as any injury that occurred on my property.  I'd contact my homeowners/liability insurance provider (same company) and see what I needed to do if anything.

If the parents came after me legally, I'd just turn it over to the insurance and let them handle it and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.  I have probably paid over $100k to my insurance company over the last 20+ years so I would like to have a little return on that investment, believe it or not.  lol

We had another situation 11 or 12 years ago where our then 8 year old son was mauled by a german shepherd at a neighbors house.  Got him pretty good on the back and finger where he had to have several stitches.  We took him to the ER and had everything fixed up and the parents came over and gave us their insurance information for everything and the insurance even offered a settlement, which we told them wasn't necessary but reluctantly took.
That was a little more obvious of a liability situation though, so it's not in any way the same type of situation with kids just being dumb kids and somebody gets injured.

Other than a couple minor fender benders over the years we've been fortunate enough to not be on either side of any insurance type events as a family.

Either way, I'm in complete agreement with my random internet friends here that this should just be left alone.  I was leaning that way from the start, but merely curious to what others thought.

awesome information and that's exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks

And.... I did try to get camera's in the main living areas of the house but my wife vetoed that one.     So, you only get outside perimeter video coverage for now... 

I did catch my first accident on my dashcam of my car a couple weeks back if want to see that one though.

You have to love insurance companies.

her first doctor visits were all denied by our insurance company because they consider a broken nose an accident and the other party should be responsible for paying the costs.  lmao

My wife called and gave them a piece of her mind and I think they're going to approve them and process it, but I thought you guys would find that amusing.  

Doesn't surprise me a bit.  I had a root canal on a front tooth due to a past injury which eventually caused the difficulty.  Well, guess what.  Front tooth is considered "cosmetic", therefore no coverage.  Good times.