Logan, everyone. Welcome to Washington Gun Law tv. I'm Washington Gun Law President William Kirk. Thanks for joining us. Sitting out here on the deck in our beautiful central Washington location. It's about 92 degrees. I'm not really sure why I have a jacket and shirt on, but someone had to ask me to do a presentation about whether or not individuals should have self-defense coverage, self-defense insurance. It's a question that gets asked me a lot. I came up with three pages of notes and I really taken a look at that link right there that some of you are kind enough to go ahead and give a suggestions. A lot of you have wanted to have this discussion. So we're going to have a discussion today about self-defense insurance, self-defense coverage, whatever you want to call it. Now, I want to get a couple of caveats out of the way because right here at Washington Gun Law, we really are trying to be picky about keeping it right down the middle.
So a couple of things. I am not plugging any company with this. I am not criticizing any company with this. This is not an endorsement. This is not a criticism of any company, okay? We're just going to have an honest discussion. There are some disclosures I need to make. However, as you know, I have a relationship with Right to Bear. You guys have seen these ads running on my channel, so you know that there is a relationship there. And yes, I am paid by Right to Bear for those ads. That's the truth, okay? I also had a previous relationship with another self-defense company. They operated here in Washington State as an insurance company. I'm not going to name them, but I had a relationship with them at one time in my career. So today, let's get really, really honest and let's have a discussion about should you really get self-defense insurance.
Okay? Before we get going too far down the road, we're going down proud to announce that this video is being brought to you by Right To Bear. That's right, legal protection for self-protection. Listen, good lawyers aren't cheap. Cheap lawyers aren't good. You're not truly prepared unless you have right to bear back. You will always get an attorney answered hotline, so you will always have a confidential phone call. There are no cap limits for either civil or criminal defense. This covers all forms of self-defense. So from a fist to a firearm, from a fat lip to a dead body, you are covered and you'll have some of the nation's most passionate two A attorneys in your corner fighting for you. And right now, if you visit my friends@protectwithbear.com and you use the promo code wgl, you'll receive 10% off. Listen, you need to protect yourself so that you can protect them.
Visit my Good friends@protectwithbear.com. Okay, well, let's just get right to the punchline. So in case you just want to skip the rest of the video, you can do that, but the short answer is yes. In fact, the short answer is hell yes, you should. Okay? And whether it's a self-defense insurance, or self-defense coverage or whatever it may be, I highly, highly recommend you do so. Now, I'm going to give you two things that I want to talk about. Number one, why should you do this? Okay? And then secondly, what should you be looking for? And again, I'm going to try to keep this as objective as I possibly can so that you can use this as a tool to make your own decisions. You're all big boys and big girls, so we're not going to tell you how to think is going to give you the stuff to think about.
Okay? The first question, why? I know a lot of you think like I'm never going to need something like that. I don't go out looking for trouble, and I believe you are the kind of person that doesn't go out looking for trouble. The problem is, is we live in a world where trouble likely could find you. The other thing is a lot of people think that the only reason you would ever have some type of self-defense coverage is because you would be involved in a shooting incident. That's the most extreme example of what happens. But if you talk to anybody who works with any of the reputable self-defense insurance carrier, self-defense coverage companies, they will tell you that 75 to 90% of all incidents do not involve a firearm at all. And so you really need to be looking for coverage that's going to cover, and as I always like to say, anywhere from a fist to a firearm resulting in anything from a fat lip to a dead body.
And the truth of the matter is, is that more than 75% of the time, the type of self-defense incidents that we deal with do not involve lethal force. They involve some use of force. And sometimes there's a question as to whether or not that force is lawful, but really it covers a broad, broad range of force that you may have to use in defense of yourself or others or property. Hey, do you drive? Because if you do the place, you're most likely going to come in armed conflict is not in your home. It's not during your backyard barbecue. It's not over your kids' little league game. No, it's actually out on the roadway. Are you a hunter? Some companies offer hunter protection. So if you have some type of a negligent incident or you accidentally violate some type of gaming rule, there are companies that on some occasions may actually cover that.
Do you get children? What happens when little Johnny, your sixth grader, finally gets tired of Randy, the bully? It just knocks his block off. Well, now you're before the school district and you're talking about a potential suspension. Some companies may actually be able to represent your minor children in situations like that. Hey, listen, for whatever reason, even though we preach lawful and responsible gun ownership, I hear stories every week about negligent discharges. And candidly, I can go on and on and on about how there really is no such thing as a negligent discharge. It's actually a gross negligent discharge. But that's another story. But what if something happens? What if somebody is injured? What if some property is damaged? Who's going to protect you on that one? Once again, you have the opportunity of having protection. And so that gets to the second big reason why.
What are we trying to protect from? Well, we're trying to protect you from suffering a financial catastrophe because you got to understand, depending on jurisdictions, we're just talking a simple misdemeanor assault. You'd punch somebody out because they were trying to attack you, and the prosecutor doesn't believe your story. You're still looking at anywhere from five to $10,000 in legal fees. Now, if you're getting charged with a felony assault because there's been some serious bodily injury or deadly weapons involved, well congratulations. Let's add a zero to it because now you're looking at around $50,000 in legal fees. Oh, God forbid if there's a dead body involved, okay? Now they're charging you with manslaughter. You're claim and self-defense. Have I seen this happen? Yeah, too frequently. And in certain jurisdictions it happens far too frequently. What are you looking for in legal fees there? Well, just to get in the door with a decent attorney, you're probably looking at a hundred thousand dollars.
And if your case proceeds all the way to trial and you have to get some use of force experts and perhaps some ballistic experts and a bunch of other experts to get 'em in and testify, plus all the attorney fees, now you're easily, easily a quarter million dollars into the thing. And oh, yeah, you may be found not guilty, congratulations. But unless you live in certain states like Washington State where we actually have a defense attorney reimbursement statute, which requires the state to reimburse the defendant for his legal fees if he's found not guilty by reason of self-defense, many states don't have that. So congratulations, you got yourself a not guilty verdict. You're an exonerated person. Oh, but you're a quarter million dollars poorer now too. And listen, be honest with yourself. A lot of you are financially secure, but you just don't have an extra quarter million kicking around now.
Oh, and maybe you get an attorney who's only going to charge you hourly. Well, that's fine. But again, to get in the door with a decent attorney, you're looking anywhere from 300 to $500 an hour and likely more than that in many jurisdictions. But then remember, even if you're exonerated, that doesn't stop the nightmare right there because no, you could actually be sued civilly and yeah, even though maybe you were found not guilty by reason of self-defense, is that going to stop the perpetrator's family for suing you for the injuries that he suffered or perhaps wrongful death? Absolutely, positively it will not. And unlike the plaintiff's attorneys who are sitting on potentially a huge payday and can actually get paid just on the percentage of what they recover, oh, no, no, no, no. Defense attorneys know that there's no pot of gold form at the end.
So they get their pot of gold upfront. So now again, if you're looking for a really good civil defense attorney, you're shelling out a hundred, $200,000 just to save yourself another 300 or $400,000. Listen, I'll tell you a story about a guy in Tacoma named Tom. Tom was thought he was covered by some company that I will remain nameless, but I can tell you that it's a company that I never really heard of before and have never really heard of since it's not a big name company. Tom was involved in a lawful self-defense shooting down in Pierce County, Washington. Unfortunately, the Pierce County prosecutor did not agree that it was self-defense. And Tom, after finding out that this particular insurance carrier really was not going to cover him whatsoever, in fact, they never even returned his call, ultimately had to go out and hire private counsel.
Now, the good news is Tom was found not guilty at trial. He was found not guilty at trial. The fee that was quoted to him by a couple of other attorneys that I set Tom up with was $140,000 pretrial. So that alone on the why should be enough to convince you that yeah, you probably should need some type of protection. But then the question is, what kind of protection do you need? Well, I think there's one big important thing you need to understand is that many of these companies are going to be set up one of two ways, either the insurance model or the association model, and there are pros and cons to both. But if you're going to start shopping around, let me get you a list of questions that you should be willing and able to ask any of these companies. And unless you have a satisfactory answer, I'm not sure that that would be the product that you should invest in.
Question number one, are you an insurance or an association model? You need to know that because in many states, if they are operating as an insurance company, there's all sorts of regulations, both federal and state, that are laying over the top of these companies that could restrict the amount of services or types of services that they can actually provide. That is an important question. Is there an emergency hotline? Yeah. Is there an emergency hotline that's actually going to be answered by a real human being who's a licensed attorney in your state? And this is important because we've become so mobile as a country now, many people's area codes no longer match up with the geographical area that they live. So how does that particular company make sure that you're talking to the correct local attorney demand to know who your state's attorney is going to be?
Could you imagine, for example, if you were a member of an organization here in Washington State and all crap hit the fan all of a sudden, and then you find out that your attorney has an office in Portland, Oregon and is not even have an office and is merely just licensed in Washington state, is that the person that you want to have representing you? You may be totally comfortable with that, but is that something you should know? Of course, that's something you should know. Also, find out that sometimes you'll see a real big time attorney at the top of a law firm. Is that the attorney that's going to cover your case or you going to be assigned to one of the associates? And just because you're assigned to an associate, understand doesn't mean that you're being sloughed off to some lesser attorney. Sometimes these associates are pretty darn good, but you do have the right to know who these people are.
What other types of coverages can you obtain? For example, do they have a multi-state coverage? So if you live close to another state and you're frequently traveling in there, would you be covered there? Maybe your person who travels quite frequently around the country, either for pleasure or for business. Are there programs that can actually cover you no matter what state you're in hunting? We talked about that earlier. A lot of things can happen. Most of them accidental or negligent while hunting. Sometimes you'll even find programs that can protect you while you're fishing. What is available and how does it work in your state bail coverage? Oh, this is a big one. And many companies that are operating as an insurance model oftentimes cannot offer bail coverage. But listen, if you're getting charged with a manslaughter in the first degree, manslaughter in the second degree and getting booked into jail, you're probably having going to post a couple hundred thousand dollars in order to be able to get out of jail pending trial.
Many people can't come up with both the money for bail and the attorney. And so having bail coverage if it's available from a company, could be extremely valuable to you. Expert witness fees. Oh my God, you want to know how to rack up the cost on a trial real fast? Yeah, get a use of force expert, a ballistic expert, and a blood spatter expert all in one. Suddenly you're 100,000 plus into your experts. And we haven't even talked about what it's costing for the attorneys and all the legal clerks working under 'em, but most importantly, find out about who the people are that run these companies. Find out what their motivation is. Is it profit driven or are they actually trying to establish a human relationship? Are they more worried about how much you're going to pay each month? Or are they more worried about whether or not you're going to be protected and you're going to be safe?
Are they more interested in their bottom line or are they more interested in preserving your inalienable rights? You may have questions about this or any other company. Now, please understand, I have previously disclosed to you that I have a professional relationship with a particular company, so I'm not going to be doing any advising on what about this company, what about that company? And you guys all know what I think about the company that I am working with currently. If you got any other questions about this topic or anything else related to what's left of our Second Amendment rights, you guys should know how to get ahold of Washington and gun law by now. But if you don't, that's okay. Down below there in the description box is all of our contact information. Maybe you got an idea for a video. This video is actually an idea of many, many viewers who had asked us to do a video about this. If you do, go ahead and click on that link right there, because candidly, some of the best ideas we ever came up with were not our ideas at all. And then finally, and most importantly, let's remember that part of being the lawful and responsible gun owner, like we talk about all the time here, is to know what the law is in every situation, how it applies to you in any instance that you may find yourself. Until next time, thanks for watching and stay safe.
YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NoguALIR5c&list=WL&index=3&t=454s
Credit: William Kirk, Washington Gun Law, President