Did CCW Safe Change Their Policy Because of AOR?
Marc Victor:
Hey everybody, attorney Mark Victor here. I am the owner of the Attorneys for Freedom Law Firm, which of course administers the attorneys on retainer program, but today this video is going to be a review of the CCW Safe Program. Now wait a second. I know that you're thinking to yourself, I've already reviewed the CCW Safe Program. Well guess what happened? This is sort of an update video. We did the first video quite a while ago. That was based on the old contract terms of service for CCW Safe. Apparently they didn't like that video. They didn't like the fact that I was actually reading from their contract and just pointing out things that you may not have read in the CCW safe terms of service. So it's come to my attention that in November of 2023, CCW Safe changed their terms of service. They did a different contract.
How did that come to my attention? I'll tell you exactly how it came to my attention because on November 20th, 2023, just a few weeks after CCW Safe changed their terms of service, did a whole new contract. I got a letter, an actual email from CCW Safe that pointed out that I'm inaccurately representing CCW Safe's services. Well, it was certainly accurate at the time, but now there's a new contract, so we got to do a whole new video for CCW Safe. That's what this video is about. Alright, no problem. As you might have guessed, I just happen to have the current terms of service for the new CCW safe contract right here in my hands. You may have noticed lots of writing things highlighted on here. I'm going to go through and highlight a few points. First, let me get started with a few warmups here under the definition section.
Covered territory
Page one, under covered territory. Here's what it says. Covered territory means the United States of America excluding New Jersey, Washington and New York. Alright, so no big deal. New Jersey, Washington in New York. If you want CCW safe, you are out okay? But it's actually a little bit worse than that. If you look at page three of the CCW contract in the paragraph under restricted and excluded states, here's what it says. No member will receive benefits for a covered self-defense use of force incident occurring within the states of New Jersey, Washington or New York, even if the member is a resident of another state traveling through those states. Okay? So just to be clear, CCW safe is not available if you're in New Jersey, Washington or New York. But even if you're in another state and you're traveling through New Jersey, Washington or New York and you have a problem in one of those states, sorry, CCW safe isn't going to help you at all.
Insurance company
No big deal. Not the end of the world. But moving right along, page nine of the new CCW safe contract, right up at the top it talks about an insurance company. Two, a insurance company. It's all kinds of information about this insurance company here. But in the last line it says the company's insurance afforded by the above-referenced policy is subject to all the terms exclusions and conditions of such policy. What are those? Doesn't tell me anything about. What are those terms exclusions and conditions of that policy. There's nothing in this contract here about that. So we don't have any idea, okay? So hold that thought. I'm going to get back to the insurance policy in just a second. Okay? My third point about the CCW safe contract that you might be interested in if you're considering CCW safe or if you are already a member of CCW safe and you haven't seen the new terms of service is on page one, right under covered self-defense use of force incident.
Here's what it says. A member involved incident which occurs in a covered location in the covered territory we're the legal defense of justifiable use of force may be lawfully raised and admissible evidence of self-defense or the defense of another exists. What does that mean exactly? What if there is no admissible evidence of self-defense? Okay, well it's certainly possible that the defendant may testify and say, Hey, I acted in self-defense and then you would have admissible evidence of self-defense. But what if the defendant doesn't testify? How will they interpret this section? I don't know how CCW safe will interpret this section. So I don't know exactly what that means. Does this exclude the bad shoot? I mean, what if you make a mistake and there really isn't admissible evidence of self-defense because it's a bad shoot? It's probably why you're charged, right? I mean, here's a little tip just from doing this 30 years, prosecutors don't generally charge cases when the self-defense shoot is clearly a good shoot.
High profile examples
Alright? We've had a couple of high profile examples. We had Rittenhouse, we had the George Zimmerman situation, which technically wasn't a shoot. Those were examples of, in my opinion, good uses of self-defense that actually were charged. But those are the exceptions for high profile cases. Most of the time if you get charged with a crime, it's either a clearly bad shoot or one that's arguable. So I don't really know what this section means. I don't know how CCW safe would interpret this, but it sure leaves me wondering whether or not a bad shoot would be covered. So I don't know how to answer that one. You're going to have to decide for yourself what that means. Okay, so the fourth thing I want to talk about with the new CCW safe terms of service is on page three. If you look down at the bottom under member services and coverage, not going to read the whole paragraph, but you'll see it talks about issues arising out of the use of a legal firearm or other legal weapons as one of our old friends exclusions that we see all the time with many of these other companies.
Legal weapon
It's got to be a legal weapon. It seems pretty clear to me that if you're using an illegal weapon, there's some kind of a problem with the weapon, right? I think serial number problem barrel too short, something like that. Maybe you had one of these triggers that's an issue and the A TF thinks, hey, you've got an illegal weapon or any other countless reasons why A TF might decide it's an illegal weapon. Seems pretty clear to me based on page three. If you got an illegal weapon, you got no coverage with CCW safe. My fifth point here, continuing on with the sort of parade of exclusions that we see on a regular basis with so many of these other companies. Page 13, you can find about halfway down the paragraph on duty incidents coverage exclusion. CCW Safe will not provide the services for any on-duty incidents or extra duty security incidents to include but not limited to.
Then we go on a parade of a whole bunch. So essentially if you're on duty and you get charged with a crime and you think CCW safe is going to help you, looks to me like you might be out of luck. Okay? Number six. This is one of my favorite ones here. Page 13, about a third of the way down substances that alter judgment. It says in here that CCW safe recommends that members do not carry firearms while under the influence of any substances that alter judgment. Well, that's good advice, no doubt about that. CCW safe will not deny planned benefits for an otherwise covered use of force self-defense incident because the member is alleged to be impaired. Okay? So if you are alleged to be impaired, CCW safe clearly won't drop you. But what if you're actually impaired? I mean certainly doesn't take much to be impaired to the slightest degree.
DUI Law
That's how DUI Law works could actually be convicted of A DUI under the legal limit and there's nothing that says a 0.03, a 0.04, a 0.05, which is a pretty low level of impairment that can get you convicted of A DUI can that get you dropped from CCW safe because you are actually impaired maybe to the slightest degree like A DUI, but lots of people might find themselves drinking alcohol maybe at home, maybe at a restaurant. You don't get to select the time that a self-defense incident arises, but if it arises at a time after you've been drinking alcohol and you're actually impaired, maybe only slightly, is that going to be sufficient for CCW safe to drop? You certainly appears that way to me, but I don't know how CCW safe is going to interpret this section. I don't know why they use the word alleged to be impaired.
Why don't they just say they won't drop you Even if you are impaired by alcohol use the way a OR does. We don't care if it's a self-defense incident. We'll defend you even if you've been drinking alcohol and you're actually impaired. Okay? Enough said on that point. Okay, my seventh point as to CCW safe is on page 14. Most of the way down the page here it says No attorney client relationship and release of liability. Here's what it says. Covered member acknowledges that no attorney client relationship is created between covered member and CCW safe upon remitting membership payment for a selected level of service or upon acknowledgement of these terms of service by the covered member. Okay? Well no surprise here because CCW safe isn't a law firm, so anything you tell CCW safe isn't protected by the attorney-client relationship or by attorney-client privilege. That's the difference When you're dealing with a club or organization like CW Safe that uses an insurance company in some way in a law firm where from your very first phone call you have attorney-client privilege and you are protected by the ethical duty of confidentiality.
Point number eight, page 13
Okay? Point number eight, page 13, right at the top, restrictions, limitations, notices and exclusions. You thought you got to select your attorney with CCW Safe. Read along with me here. Selection of counsel with the input of the member CCW Safe will select and retain counsel to represent a member in a covered self-defense use of force incident and will assist in support retained counsel in litigation management. You got input, but they get to decide they're the ones making the decision who your lawyer is. You get input, okay? It's nice that you get input, but CCW Safe will select in retained counsel, not you. Okay? To be fair, I don't know who they're going to select. Maybe they're going to get the best, most expensive lawyer who you would want on the case. Maybe not. That's up to CCW Safe, not you. Another point here that I think is kind of important, it says CCW Safe will assist in support retained counsel in litigation management.
Really? How are they going to do that without any attorney client privilege. They can't be involved in any discussions. They already told you there's no attorney client privilege because they're not a law firm. So how are they going to assist in support retained counsel without knowing anything about the case? Okay, seems like another problem because they're not a law firm. Point number nine kind of ties it all together. On page 13, it's under a paragraph near the top entitled Cooperation Covered Member agrees to cooperate with CCW Safe and Connection with services provided to Covered member including but not limited to cooperation with any attorney retained to assist covered member attending all required court appearances and authorizing any attorney retained to assist covered member to communicate with CCW SAFE regarding any information reasonably requested by CCW Safe. Are you kidding me? This group that just told you, you got no attorney-client privilege says you must authorize any attorney who they pick and retain to assist you to communicate with them regarding any information that they have requested.
Okay? This says the retained lawyer must communicate with CCW Safe. Any responsible lawyer is going to have you sign a waiver of attorney-client privilege, and anything that lawyer tells CCW safe is not going to be protected. What does that mean? That means the prosecutor can depose, think, interview anyone at CCW Safe and ask them questions, questions like, what did this defendant's lawyer tell you? Tell me everything about the conversation. I want to know what was discussed, what strategy was discussed, what things was the lawyer concerned about with the case? There's no privilege to not talk about that and if you think prosecutors aren't crafty enough to look at this contract and figure it out and request an interview with everybody at CCW Safe who had a discussion with your lawyer, which is required under this contract, you're not given these prosecutors enough credit, especially if the case is a serious case.
CCW Safe wants to talk to your lawyer
And by the way, why do you think CCW Safe wants to talk to your lawyer? What information do they need from your lawyer? Maybe, I don't know, maybe information so they can conclude. Actually, it's not a self-defense matter so they can deny coverage. I don't know. I'm speculating here. I don't know why this is here, but I can't think of any reason why your lawyer, the one CW Safe selected and is paying for has to communicate with CCW Safe and how on earth this could possibly be in your interest given that they've told you all throughout this contract that there ain't no attorney-client privilege here doesn't make any sense. Okay, point number 10. It's on page 14 of the CCW safe contract if you're following along right at the bottom. The last section I'm going to read it to you. It says The covered member expressly and unconditionally releases without limitations and agrees to hold harmless CCW safe from any claim, controversy or dispute arising out of any services provided by CCW Safe or other service rendered by a contracted law firm, its attorneys and other personnel, a professional firm or business affiliated with or retained by a network law firm and its employees, contractors, or personnel.
What does that mean? CCW Safe's going to pick the lawyer, but they're not going to be responsible for anything. No matter what goes wrong, you are going to expressly and unconditionally release them without limitation. You're going to hold them harmless. So if they give you a lawyer who does a horrible job, don't talk to CCW safe because they're not going to be responsible for anything here. As best I can tell, they get to pick the lawyer and if the lawyer does a bad job, don't talk to CCW safe, read it for yourself. No liability or responsibility for anything CCW Safe does or fails to do or the contracted lawyer that they select does or fails to do. One other point before I get to my favorite part of this video in this contract review, I couldn't tell if you have to have a valid CCW permit in order to be covered by CCW Safe.
I looked through their contract and it wasn't clear to me. So if you're a CCW safe person, maybe you should call CCW Safe and ask them, if I'm in a state where a permit is required and I don't have a permit or my permit is expired, do I still get coverage from CCW Safe? I couldn't tell the answer to that, but also I couldn't tell the answer to a lot of things. There were aspects in the old contract. You may remember if you saw that video where in the old contract that it said an Intentional Criminal Act is specifically excluded, okay, this contract doesn't speak to that. So I couldn't tell exactly what was covered. Remember back at the beginning of this video when I noted there was this insurance company out there and I said, I don't know anything about the terms and conditions.
Letter from my law firm to CCW Safe
Well, I decided that in order for me to do this video and be very fair to CCW Safe, I wanted to contact them and ask them some questions so I could fairly and accurately represent what their position is on some important issues. So here's the letter from my law firm to CCW Safe. As you can see, it is on Attorneys for Freedom letterhead. Let me read it to you. So the letters dated December 12th, 2023. Shortly after I got the communication from CCW Safe advising me that my old video was no longer current because they had new terms and conditions. Well, after reading that, I decided I would do a new video, but I wanted clarification. Alright, at the time of the recording of this video, it's been well over a month and crickets from CCW Safe, no response whatsoever. It's addressed to CCW Safe and we'll black out the name of the attorney, but suffice to say Assistant General Counsel.
And here's the address where we sent it regarding YouTube video regarding CCW Safe Self-Defense Policy Review 2023. And here's what the letter says, please be advised that I am the managing attorney in the Civil Litigation Department at the Attorneys for Freedom Law Firm. As such, please send any future correspondence directed to my attention. I am in receipt of your November 20th, 2023 email wherein you allege our law firm has inaccurately represented CCW Safe's services. I know that CCW safe very recently with an effective date of November 3rd, 2023 altered its terms of service. Indeed, this is the reason for any alleged inaccuracies in our past review of the CCW Safe program. That said, we are committed to distributing fair and accurate information about alternatives to our attorneys on retainer program. Therefore, we intend to record a new video fairly and accurately analyzing the current terms of the CCW Safe program.
To that end, we have three separate requests. Number one, we note that the current terms reference an insurance policy entitled to a insurance, which is alleged to be a segregated account of Madison First Property and Casualty Limited and is subject to all the terms exclusions and conditions of such policy. As part of our review of the CCW Safe Program, we are requesting that you provide a copy of that insurance policy so we can accurately evaluate that component. Number two, we would also like to know CCW Safe's official position on the following hypothetical question, if a CCW safe member in good standing discharged a firearm claiming self-defense in good faith, but it was immediately determined by CCW Safe's legal counsel that the CCW safe member fatally shot a person in the back who was in the process of fleeing from the member after committing a theft of the member's wallet, would CCW safe consider this incident a covered self-defense use of force incident and extend all benefits including pay for a criminal defense attorney to represent the member now charged with second degree murder?
In question three, does CCW safe extend benefits for criminal acts notwithstanding a member's good faith but legally unjustified claim of self-defense? Your answers to the above three questions will greatly assist us in evaluating the newly updated version of the CCW Safe Program. The Attorneys for Freedom Law Firm is committed to acting only with the highest ethical standards, which includes openness, transparency, accuracy, and scrupulous fairness to our clients, prospective clients, competitors in the marketplace, and everyone else. Our interest is in accurately distributing information to the market about available options. I encourage you to bring any existing or future concerns to my attention. If we have made a mistake, we will own it and fix it immediately. We desire to have a professional and cordial working relationship with all our competitors as we each bring different products and services to a market we all care about. We request a response by January 8th, 2024.
No Response
Thank you for your anticipated prompt response and cooperation. So we asked them to respond by January eight. The letter was written December 12. The date of this recording is January 16th, 2024 and no response from CCW safe. Look, the letter speaks for itself. I couldn't tell from their contract whether or not they exclude criminal acts, which is why we asked them a hypothetical question and a direct question about whether they exclude criminal acts. Seems easy enough to simply respond to those questions. And also what's so hard about coughing up the insurance product so we can take a review to see what the terms and conditions and exclusions are so I could accurately report them to you. To be fair, I am not saying CCW safe is a bad product. I understand there's some very good people over at CCW Safe and it's a big market. It's a big enough market for lots of different companies here and we offer different things, right?
I have another video, which will be out soon if not out already by the time of this video critiquing the attorneys on retainer program. And I go through exactly what the limitations of attorneys on retainer are with the same vigor that I just tore apart the CCW Safe program. Maybe we'll put a link to it at the bottom of this video. So if you want to see my critique of the Attorneys on Retainer program have at it also, some people have asked, Hey Mark, can I be a member of the Attorneys on retainer program and still be a member of one of these other programs? No problem as far as we are concerned. Happy to work with any other competent lawyers on any cases. Look, I've been representing people in major felony cases for over 30 years now, and I've done many death penalty cases, including many death penalty trials.
And on each of those, I've had to work with another attorney from a different law firm, never had a problem. Happy to work with anybody. If it's CCW Safe and they provide a contracted attorney of their choice to work with us on the case, no problem. You can have our program in any other program you want. And in fairness, there are some reasons why you might want some other programs in addition to, or even instead of the Attorneys on retainer program trying to get accurate information out there. Maybe CCW Safe will respond to this letter at some point in the future, but I think we've given them enough time, right? It didn't take very long for CCW Safe to change their contract and reach out to me pretty quick to say, Hey, mark, the video you did is now inaccurate. Okay, no problem. New video, new contract.
But when we send them a letter dated December 12th, 2023 and ask for a response by January 8th, 2024, then wait an additional eight days, okay? A phone, an email. Hey Mark, just want to let you know it's past the date to respond to your email, but we're working on something. It's coming soon. Don't make your video yet. We got answers to the question. No problem. But it's been crickets. So that's the state of affairs. If you want to join CCW Safe and you're comfortable with the various restrictions and things that I pointed out, fantastic. More power to you. If you don't want to deal with any of those exclusions, check out the Attorneys on Retainer program. We're very clear about our program. Not only did I release a video critiquing a OR, but if you join the Attorneys on Retainer program, you're going to get what I would call an excruciatingly long video.
Well over an hour of me reading every single word and explaining all of it, going through the attorneys on retainer fee agreement so you understand exactly what it is you are signing up for. Alright? So that's the best I can do with the information I have on the CCW Safe Program. Again, sure, there's great people over there as there are really running most of these good programs here. You're interested in attorneys on retainer. Check us out, attorneys on retainer, us you have questions. Feel free to reach out. We got nothing to hide. You can email me directly. As many people have found out, I'm very accessible. It's just Mark MAR c@attorneysforfreedom.com. If you want to know about the Attorneys for Freedom Law Firm, really easy to find out attorneys for freedom.com. If you're interested in joining any of these programs, do yourself a favor. Get as much information about each of them as possible. If you want to see more videos like this, like subscribe, leave a comment in the video if you want. We do our best to respond to all comments that you leave on the video. No problem. We're happy to hear from you whether you agree or disagree. If you bring it civilized, you'll get a response from us. Alright, thanks for listening. My name is Mark Victor. Peace.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx5wLx63Bvc
Credit: Marc Victor, Esq Attorney’s On Retainer
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