Legal Question in Insurance Law in Massachusetts

Re: Home Owner Insurance Claim/Personal Injury

I hope your boyfriend is going to be OK.

The "Medical Payments" coverage on your Homeowner's policy is a "no fault"-type coverage. It covers medical expenses for anyone injured while on your property regardless of whther anyone was "at fault" for the accident. This should cover your boyfriend's medical expenses, up to the $5,000 limit, depending on how the policy defines "Medical Payments to Others", especially the "Others" part. A lot of these policies do NOT cover injuries to "the insured" or to "household members" of the insured. If the policy has this type of exclusion, it will also spell out their definition of "insured" and "household member". Your boyfriend might be excluded from coverage. These definitions often are different from what an ordinary person might expect, so you may need for a lawyer to review the policy language.

Whether or not your boyfriend can get benefits from the "Personal Liability" coverage, or fom any other source, depends on how the accident happened and "who did what". The "Personal Liability" coverage of a Homeowner's policy only comes into play if the howmowner was NEGLIGENT in some way, and that negligence caused the other person's injury. Did you do anything negligent that caused your boyfriend's injury? Were you running the backhoe? Did you maintain a dangerous condition on the property that contributed to the accident?

More likely, your boyfriend may have a claim against whoever was operating the backhoe. That claim may or may not be covered by your Homeowner's insurance, depending on whether you rented or owned the backhoe and other factors. If the backhoe operator was negligent, your boyfriend can make a claim (or suit) agaisnt the operator, That claim would not likely trigger your Homeowner's insurance, but the operator might have some sort of insurance of his own.

I agree with the others, your boyfriend should talk to a lawyer.