Personal Liability

Bodily injury to a third party. You knock someone down on a ski slope, your luggage falls on a fellow passenger, a child in your care injures another guest. The cover meets their medical costs and any compensation you are legally required to pay.

Damage to third-party property. A broken hotel television, a shop display you catch with a backpack, a rental apartment's flooded bathroom. Note the emphasis on third-party: your own belongings are a baggage claim, not a liability claim.

Legal defence costs. Lawyers, court fees and the cost of defending the claim, which in many jurisdictions exceeds the settlement itself. Most wordings require the insurer's written consent before you appoint a lawyer, so call the helpline before you engage anyone.

Anything you did on purpose, or so recklessly that intent is arguable. This is the exclusion insurers lean on most.

Incidents while you were intoxicated or under the influence of drugs — a common cause of exactly the kind of accident this benefit would otherwise pay for.

Anything involving a motor vehicle. Hire-car and two-wheeler liability sits with the vehicle's own insurance in almost every country, and travel policies exclude it precisely because that separate cover is compulsory.

Property you own, rent long-term, or have in your custody. Damage to the flat you have leased for a semester is not a travel liability claim.

Liability towards family members and travelling companions, which most wordings exclude.

Professional or business activity, contractual liabilities you agreed to take on, and in most policies, anything arising from adventure sports or animals in your care.

Personal liability is usually a separate limit from the medical sum insured, and it is the one place where the geography of your trip should drive the number.

In the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, Australia and parts of Western Europe, personal-injury awards and legal costs run far ahead of Indian norms. A slip-and-fall claim that would settle for a few lakh rupees in India can reach six figures in dollars once US legal costs are added.

For trips to the USA, Canada, Australia or Western Europe, a liability limit in the range of USD 100,000 to 200,000 is a reasonable floor. For most of Asia and the Middle East, USD 100,000 is generally sufficient. Check the figure specifically — a plan with a large medical sum insured does not automatically carry a large liability limit.

Do not admit liability, apologise in writing, or offer to pay. It feels ungracious, and every policy requires it — an admission can prejudice the insurer's ability to defend the claim and, in strict wordings, void the benefit entirely.

Notify the insurer's assistance line immediately, before you respond to the other party or their lawyer.

Pass on every document unanswered: letters of demand, summons, police notices. Forward, do not reply.

Collect what will not exist later — photographs of the scene, the names and contact details of witnesses, and a police report where one is available.

Personal liability is close to standard on international plans from the five insurers we hold rate charts for — Bajaj, Tata AIG, ICICI Lombard, Care Health and IndusInd — but the limit, and whether legal costs sit inside or outside that limit, vary between plan tiers rather than between companies.

Two questions settle it. Is the liability limit stated separately from the medical sum insured, or shared with it? And are defence costs paid in addition to the limit, or deducted from it? A plan paying costs in addition is materially better in exactly the scenario where the benefit matters.

The policy wording is the only reliable answer to both; marketing pages routinely quote the headline sum insured and omit the liability sub-limit entirely.