An insurance underwriter put it in writing this summer:
“It is a hard no, even if just in classroom. We do not intend to cover being told it is ok to use any weapon or how to use one.”
Not live fire. Not force on force. Not putting a gun in anyone’s hand. Being told. A church security instructor standing in a classroom, explaining when the law allows a man to defend his congregation, is conduct that carrier will not touch. That sentence came from RSUI’s underwriter, relayed to me in writing by my broker on July 10, after I asked whether the weapons exclusion on their quote could be amended. I have the email. I will show it to you in the video that goes with this article.
That quote is the end of the story. Here is the beginning.
Five clean years, then one honest answer
Graves and Associates has carried professional liability and general liability since July of 2021. Five years, zero claims, premiums paid on time. This spring the renewal quote came in at $3,621 and I did what I teach every one of you to do with any contract: I read the whole policy before signing. I found a terrorism exclusion that appeared to apply across every insuring clause, no cyber coverage at all, and a business activities description that did not clearly include the instructor training courses I plan to launch. So I asked six questions in writing before binding. Would a negligence claim be covered if a church I trained were attacked. What does the terrorism endorsement actually restore. Does the policy cover instructor certification.
The carrier’s answer was to pull the renewal entirely. Their stated reason, word for word: “Given the significant changes to the risk profile, including hands-on training, potential safety and evasion guidance, general security advisory services, and product sales, together with our review of the additional website, the account unfortunately now falls outside of our underwriting appetite.”
Safety and evasion guidance. Teaching people how to not die put me outside their appetite. They offered me an extension to August 1 for another $157 so I could go find somebody else.
Everybody said no
My broker marketed the account to the standard carriers: Liberty Mutual, The Hartford, Nationwide, Guard, Travelers. Every one declined. The nature of the business was outside their appetite. She went to the surplus lines markets, the specialty carriers that exist specifically for hard risks. Higher premiums, declines, or blocked submissions. A firearms industry program I applied to directly denied the application. By July 15 my broker told me plainly that she had reached the end of the companies she could approach. The one general liability quote she could secure came from RSUI, and it carried the weapons exclusion you read at the top of this article. When I asked if the exclusion could be removed for classroom instruction with inert training aids, laser trainers and blue plastic guns, nothing that fires anything, the answer was the hard no.
Some of you are thinking there must be more to it. A claim, a lawsuit, something in the file. There is not. Five years, zero losses, and the loss runs to prove it. What changed was that I told the truth on a renewal application about where this ministry is headed. Honesty is what triggered all of it, and I would do it again, because a policy bound on an incomplete application is worse than no policy at all. Buried in the conditions of that same policy was an application warranty stating that any misrepresentation or non-disclosure renders the policy null and void and relieves the carrier of all liability. Plenty of trainers in this industry are paying premiums right now on policies their carriers would void the day a claim arrived, because the application never mentioned what they actually teach.
The part that should make you angry
The insurance industry does not treat church violence as a fringe concern. Carriers that serve churches publish active shooter preparedness guidance. They distribute security checklists. They recommend congregations assess their vulnerabilities and train their people. The industry’s own risk materials tell churches to prepare for exactly the attack my courses address.
Then the trainer shows up to buy coverage and the same industry says no. They will insure the church that receives the training. They will publish the checklist telling the church to get it. They will not cover the man who provides it, and one of them will not even cover him for talking about it in a classroom. I spent almost thirty years in law enforcement and I have sat across the table from people doing things they knew were indefensible. They at least had the decency to look uncomfortable. This industry put its position on letterhead.
How it got solved, and the disclosure that goes with it
What cold submissions could not do, a relationship did. Most of you know I work with Right To Bear, and I will say plainly what I say every time: I am an affiliate, they sponsor this ministry, and there is a link below. Weigh that however you want. The facts are the facts either way. When I told them what was happening, their owner connected me with his brokerage, Moultrie Insurance, a firm that lives in the self defense world and was not scared of the words church security. Within weeks Moultrie placed what six months of shopping could not: general liability through Kinsale, an A rated carrier, and professional liability through Lloyd’s of London, written for a company whose application says in plain language that it teaches active shooter response and instructor courses. Classroom based, laser trainers and blue guns, no live fire, no simunition, all of it disclosed and all of it on the record.
The price of being insured honestly is about $9,000 a year, roughly two and a half times what the old policy cost. That is the market telling you what this work is worth to insure when the carrier actually knows what you do. I will take accurate and expensive over cheap and void every day of the week.
Two questions to send your broker this week
If you train church security teams, or you are the safety director who brings trainers in, do not assume your coverage works. Claims made policies plus application warranties mean the policy you are paying for is only as good as what your application disclosed. So send your broker two questions in writing and keep the answers.
Does my policy contain a weapons exclusion, and does it apply to instruction? Not range work, instruction. You now know at least one carrier reads that exclusion to bar being told how to use a weapon in a classroom.
Does my carrier know exactly what I teach? Active shooter response, defensive tactics, firearms content, all of it, in writing, on the application. If the answer is no, fix it before you teach another class, because you will not find out what that omission costs until the worst day of your career, and by then the answer is already written into Condition 4.
I got my answers the hard way so you can get yours with an email. Send it this week.
