Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year, full of grateful hearts and stuffed tummies. That being said, there are liabilities that you need to be aware of if you are hosting a Thanksgiving celebration for your loved ones. Here are some of the things you need to research, and ensure are properly in place, if you do decide to courageously invite over all of your friends and family. 

Auto Insurance

• Unfortunately, our roads are never perfectly safe to drive around on and one must always be aware of their surroundings when venturing out. This awareness must heighten around holidays such as Thanksgiving as the number of crowded driveways, side street parking, and intoxicated drivers grow. This is the best time to ensure that your auto insurance policies are up to date and hold the proper amount of coverage. 

Homeowner’s Insurance

• Hosting Thanksgiving can put your home and property at risk in multiple facets. Cooking such a large meal in such a busy kitchen opens up the door to fires, injuries, and shattered dishware. Children playing in the front yard opens up the door to broken windows, damaged shutters, and shredded shrubbery. Having so many bodies in one home opens up the door to overworking the A/C and damaged belongings. When considering these potential chances of property damage, it is clear that checking up on your home insurance policy is more than worth the time. 

Animal Liability

• “They’re harmless!” – How many times have we said this about our sweet, sweet pets? Never would my dog bite someone, never! Of course not! – This is the mantra of the majority of animal lovers in existence; however, dog bites and cat scratches occur on a daily basis in the most loving of pet owner homes. When planning on having large crowds at your home for Thanksgiving, ensuring that you have the proper animal liability insurance coverage in place can save you quite the headache. (I’m sure your pets are angels, but you know, just in case ;)  

Research Your Host Liability Status in Your State

• Social host liability is a type of coverage that is existent in some homeowner’s policies, however, is not existent in all of them as many might think. Depending on where you live, there are certain situations that you as a host could be held responsible for. Such situations could include an injury that occurs in your home, food poisoning from a meal served in your home, as well as drunk drivers leaving your home. Ensuring that you and your home are protected in the case of an unfortunate situation, could very well save your Thanksgiving. Research both your state’s laws as well as your insurance policies themselves – if you are protecting multiple assets, then it may even be wise to purchase an umbrella policy.   

Thanksgiving should be a time of celebration and joy, not stress or worry. If you have any questions regarding your current policies, would like to request quotes on new policies, would like any additional information regarding umbrella policies, or have any other insurance questions please contact us! 

Happy Thanksgiving from Team Wren! :)