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The content of the show is offered only as a public service and does not constitute solicitation or provision of legal advice. This show should not be used as a substitute for obtaining legal advice from an attorney licensed or authorized to practice in your jurisdiction. Welcome to Trigger Words with Ryan Kleckner, a podcast about guns, law and politics.

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Welcome to Trigger Words. This show is brought to you by the Firearms Radio Network and presented by Rocket ffl, your best source for getting your FFL and staying compliant with ATF rules and regulations. This podcast, it focuses on the legal side of gun ownership in the firearms industry. We talk about guns, law and politics. I'm your host, Ryan Kleichner. I am a firearms attorney, but I'm not your attorney. Therefore, everything we discuss in this podcast is for your information and entertainment only and is not legal advice. I'm jumping on to record this episode for you all because I want to talk about something that has gotten very, very popular lately, as in the past year or two, but also really, really popular these last couple weeks, and that is concealed carry insurance. All right, this is a tough topic. It's tough because it's hard to even describe what concealed carry insurance is and what it isn't because each provider offers such a different product for different costs. It's also hard to talk about this as a topic because often the question that follows immediately after so what is CCW insurance is? Should I get it? That one's impossible for me to answer. The first one we're going to tackle. The first one we're going to tackle kind of what it is, what some of the different offerings are, maybe even what you should look for. But I am never going to be able to tell you whether it's a good idea for you to get it or even which one you should get. And that's because I don't know you and your life. I don't know your risk tolerance for things. I don't know if you're somebody who sees a risk in your life and therefore wants to mitigate that risk and get insurance for it. I don't know if you're somebody who thinks insurance is something that's not worth it and you don't need it at all. I don't know how much money you have. You have a couple million in cash sitting in the bank somewhere just ready in case something happens to you. Maybe you don't need any legal coverage or protection at all. Do you think even that maybe your actions or your choices in life would mean that you would never need such a product. Maybe that's true too. I just don't know. I'm even hinting at what I think by asking those questions. The best analogy I can give is I tell people in response to them asking me whether they should get concealed carry insurance is one I never had it and never used to really believe in it. I mean, I know it exists, of course I believe in it, but I mean it was one of those things I weighed on back and forth and thought about, but just never really jumped on because I'm like, ah, maybe should I should do that someday, maybe not, I don't know. And then I'd look into it. I'm like, I don't know if this is really worth it. And I can't imagine myself doing something where I'm going to be criminally questioned for what I did. You know, I'm going to be, excuse me, I'm going to be above and beyond on how I act with the firearm and only use it in extreme cases of self defense and therefore there never be a question. However, since I've been reading it about it and since I been researching it for gun university articles, I learned a lot more, maybe even panicked myself a little bit in some of the cases I found and decided that I finally was going to get it. So that's part of my answer is I didn't used to be a big fan of it, but yet I went out and got it for myself. Don't know if that helps you. And the second is you asking me whether you should get concealed carry insurance is kind of like you asking me if you should get flood insurance for your house. I don't know. Do you live in a floodplain? Does your normal homeowner's insurance policy cover floods? What is your risk tolerance? Like, would you like to be covered in case something bad happens or would you rather not pay the premiums? I don't know. So what I'm going to do instead is in addition to me telling you that I kind of talked myself into getting it, the more I looked into it is I'm just going to tell you what you should look for if you decide to get it and maybe which, which features should be important or maybe shouldn't be important to you generically. I have no idea what really matters for you. Let's cover it. So first thing you need to know is what concealed carry insurance is and is not. The first thing it's not is insurance. We put the word insurance right there in the word, but that's only because that's what most people call it. None of the companies I know of claim that it's actually insurance. In fact, I think they go the way to say it's not insurance because there's some issues in certain states. That's another one. It's not available in all states. You know, like New York State, Washington state. You guys are out of luck. For example, depending on some of the coverage limits. Your other states have problems too. I'll just tell you now. I'll put this in the Show Notes so wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can actually see the notes for the show. You'll be able to find it there. But I went through everything, all these details, all these pros and cons, all the dollar amounts, all the everything on an article that I wrote for Gun University. So the link will be there. Or you can just go check out gununiversity.com or heck, even if you google Best CCW insurance, I think we're up there towards the top. You can just click on the Gun University article and you can read some of the stuff there if you need more of a reference or not. But I want to cover most of it here too, so don't worry about it. So not insurance you're really buying Prepaid legal protection plan is kind of what it is. Or it's a self defense legal protection plan. Maybe that's the best way to say it is. What you're doing is you're getting a membership into an organization that can help cover your legal costs. And there's much more than legal costs. You know, some of the better companies cover things like psychological support for you or your family members after the fact. They cover the loss of your firearm from being taken for evidence or even loss of firearms that were stolen. They cover cleanup damages. You know, sometimes gunfights can be really messy and things need to be cleaned up. They can even cover property for third party people. So you're at a heaven forbid. First off, I hope you never get into a gunfight and ever have to use your gun in self defense. But if you do, in addition to making a mess, you might also damage somebody else's property. If you're at a local gas station, you might be damaging the person that owns the gas station's property and products. And they might have insurance. But either way, some of the better plans even have coverage for that kind of stuff too, which is kind of neat. So it's not insurance. It is a legal self defense legal protection plan that can cover some of your costs and they're all different. So I'm going to cover what I think are three must haves. When I spread all the companies out and tried to make a spreadsheet and kind of a matrix out of all their covering coverage options, it was almost impossible because even on some of the most important areas of coverage, which is your criminal and civil legal defense costs, even that I couldn't put just in one spreadsheet to compare. I couldn't just say legal defense costs. Company one this, Company two this. Well, because company one says, well we cover only this, this and this and not this and only this amount as long as this was covered first. And there's just, it really is difficult to make any sort of close to direct comparison. So as I laid all these out and I stared at them all, I realized that there's three things that popped out that I will tell you this, that no matter how much I'll be wishy washy and hem and ha about, I can't tell you which one to get. I will tell you this. I will not recommend any one of these CCW insurance companies that does not have these three things. That's how important the three things are to me. Now. Not saying you shouldn't do it, just if you're asking for a recommendation, if you're not asking for my recommendation, why are you listening to me? You could save so much time by just not. So here's my recommendation. Three things. Number one is the ability to pick your own attorney. Number two is getting your money up front. And number three is getting a per diem during your trial. Now I just listed those 1, 2 and 3 in order of what I think are most important. So I'm going to handle them backwards and as a topic just to build up to the most important one. So the last one I mentioned, the first one we're going to cover is a per diem during a trial. So per diem, as you may know, is daily per day. So sometimes certain jobs you work as a contractor, you might get a per diem payment for like your lunch. Or for those of you in the military, you know what per diem is? What this is is this is an extra benefit that some companies provide that if you're in trial, they'll pay you daily. And the reason this is so important is guys, a criminal defense case can easily hit a couple hundred thousand dollars and more easily. It is no problem at all for a criminal defense case, especially if it's going to be politicized or in the news or big at all. Heck, it can go into the millions, then to be a couple hundred thousand dollars or more, no question at all. Heck, to get some decent attorneys, even on retainer, it's 30,000, $50,000 just to get them to start taking your case, guys. So it can be extremely expensive. Civil defense can be expensive, too, because regardless of what happens in the criminal case, civil is when somebody else sues you. Criminal is when the government sues you. Essentially, they try to prosecute you for something. Civil is when other people sue you. So even if you win or don't a criminal, you can now have family members of the person you shot. Heck, the person you shot, if they survived suing you, you can have all sorts of other lawsuits that now not only would you have to be paying any damages that they win, you know, that the judge orders against you, which, by the way, some of these companies cover a significant dollar amount of damages. You also have to pay for an attorney to defend yourself. You know, when you're defending yourself in a criminal case, you don't just get to say, oh, you guys are wrong. We'll give you my money back. No, that's money. That's a couple hundred thousand dollars that can ruin many people's lives, even by winning. I mean, I like to say to my legal clients, depending on the situation we're dealing with, sometimes it's better to avoid the fight than it is to win it, because winning hurts. Winning can be expensive. Winning can be brutal. So anyway, getting those costs covered is really the most important reason to have one of these plans is to cover that just what could require you mortgaging your house and your family members having to give you all their money and maybe no one gets it back. But also when you're in trial, if your trial lasts for a few months, let's say, and you require, I don't know, having to work for a living, you're probably not going to be able to work for a living when you're in trial, which now means you're not making money, which now means it's even more expensive. I think it's a really nice benefit to have a per diem, which is a daily dollar amount that this company will pay you for every day you're in trial to help offset costs. Some of these are as high as 350 bucks, 500 bucks a day, which just helps your family, helps take some of your stress off of issues. And as your trial is going on, I think it's important because if you need to have a good legal defense and maybe a decision you need to make to help protect yourself legally as part of your strategies maybe would make the trial take another one or two months. I don't think it's a good idea to be stressing over your bills at home and making decisions about your legal defense. I think it's a good idea to be able to have that covered so it's one less thing you need to be worried about. So I say my recommendation is make sure you're getting at least a per diem during trial. So because my long explanation about the criminal and civil defense, let me just say that of course, if the company doesn't cover your criminal or civil defense costs at all, then it's not a company at all. So I'm assuming that they cover that and it's up to you to decide how much of amount. Some companies that are great companies, by the way, put a cap on it. They say we're only going to cover 250,000 of a criminal case. Where other companies that are also great say we're going to cover unlimited, you can have it all. And there's also some companies I don't recommend at all that say unlimited. So it's not all about that dollar amount. It's about a whole slew of other things, which I think you know if you're listening to this, because if you thought it was just about the dollar amount, you would go pay for the cheapest company with the most legal defense coverage, which we list. I have a whole chart that just graphs all that out for you. On the Gun University article, you could do that, but you wouldn't be getting some of these other things like a per diem or. The second thing that I say is a must have, which is money up front. With the NRA going out of business for this, this isn't as much of an issue. But when you pick a company, you've got to get the money up front. Sure, reimbursement is nice. It's better than nothing, for sure. However, if you already have the few hundred thousand dollars laying around to float covering your criminal costs and you can wait for a reimbursement after the trial is over, well, then maybe you don't need the CCW insurance at all. Maybe, maybe it's not something you even need. I say that if I need that money, I need it now. And make sure you have a company that gives you the money up front to pay for the attorney up front to pay for the costs up front. Because man, floating all that money on your own for, who knows, six months A year might wreck you anyway. And the last point we're going to cover, which is the number one, what I think is the most important point is the ability to pick your own attorney. Fundamental to the legal process is that you should be able to pick who you want to represent you and who you think is your best representation. This is why non compete agreements are typically unenforceable against attorneys, because you shouldn't be able to stop somebody else from getting representation they want. This is again fundamental to our legal system is if somebody's going to offer you legal protection, but you have to use their attorney, it might work out great. Heck, you actually might end up with a better attorney and a better defense than if you picked your own. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying they won't give you good defense or they won't be a good service at all. What I'm saying though is I would want the choice. So regardless of whether it was going to be a better defense or not or a better attorney or not, I want to be able to have a choice over the matter. And I never want even the doubt in my mind that my attorney might not be doing something that they could be doing because they want to save costs somewhere else. Right. It's kind of like a doctor trying to take care of something. This is might be your life and death on the line here. But guys, so you might be a life and death issue with a doctor. And it's. We're not even talking about medical insurance. We're just talking about somebody else. Some other company is set going to the doctor. Hey, you kind of gotta approve stuff through us and we're gonna pay you for everything. So we'll approve everything and pay for everything. And you kind of don't have as much of a say. That would make me very, very nervous that they may be making their decisions based on what somebody else is saying or directing. It also is gonna make me very nervous if I don't like the person. What if I just don't jive with the person? What if they don't believe me? What if they don't see my side of the issue? What if I have a witness I think is really important and they don't? Well, it's just we don't get along with this person. Your freedom is in this person's hands. I think you should be able to fire, to fire an attorney at any time you want. If you ever doubt the competence of your attorney. If you just don't even like the person, you don't think they're doing a good job, you should be able to fire them and get someone that is going to do a good job for you. This is not just you, this is also your family that's at stake here. Right? So when any system says you have to use their attorney, it makes me suspicious, it makes me nervous, it makes me not feel very secure in that decision. Again, even though it might be better representation you could ever find on your own, you might even be saying to yourself right now, well heck, I don't even know who I'd call and pick. Great, ask the company. Maybe the company's in house attorney is the best. But I would want the choice, the chance to meet with them and decide if I want to use them or not or maybe talk to other people. So to me the ability to pick your own attorney is so, so huge. The money up front is very important. A pertium during trial is really nice too. Those are three must haves that I think so again I break those down. You can check those all out at the article. I heck, I put them just right in a graph and show you, you know, back and forth. So some more discussion on concealed carry insurance and its applicability. So if you guys remember the McCloskey's, I'm recording this on August 31st and the McCloskey couple from St. Louis in June of 2020 a couple months ago had a mob break down a gate into their neighborhood and come towards their home and they came out in the front steps with guns to defend their home and defend themselves and no shots were fired. And the St. Louis prosecutor charged them with pretty serious crimes felonies by the way, for defending their homes with a firearm. Thankfully they lived in a mansion for them and they can afford this. What about you? Maybe you live in a mansion. Great. If you don't, if you don't have the hundreds of thousands sitting aside for a national spectacle of a legal trial, what are you going to do? You literally might be giving up before you even start if you don't have the hundreds of thousands to cover this. And this is one of the big things that really helped change my opinion about concealed carry insurance and whether I was going to get it is I saw the McCloskey couple and one of the things I thought is I would never do anything wrong, I would never act in a non justifiable self defense way that I would ever need to worry about this kind of an issue. Well then I look at the McCloskey couple and I realize they didn't even do anything. They didn't even fire a shot. Yes. They pulled their firearms up. They didn't even fire a shot at all. And they're in all this trouble. And I was like, oh, holy smokes. If they can get in trouble and they can have this huge deal, well, then I could, too, because I think I could reasonably see all this stuff going on with me. Wow. I'm. Maybe this is for me. They're finally going to trial for the first time today. This was in the news this morning. So I'm thinking, man, what if it was me? What if it was you that was sitting in a jail waiting for trial till today for two months? I mean, maybe we have bail money, maybe we don't. Some of these concealed carry insurance companies cover enough money for bail just right up front. They give it to you, they get you out on bail. That's amazing to me. I wouldn't want to be sitting in jail during all that time. Now, their trial and court dates up here today. How do we know this is going to take six months or more? You know, they probably have enough money to tide themselves over, but having that daily amount is a big deal. So I just. The Klosky couple, it was a big, big motivator for me and I think for a lot of other people. But the reason, I think that so many people have just been like, crazy setting up for carry insurance. I mean, we can see some of the stats for the people that are viewing the article and clicking on buttons to go see certain companies. And it has ramped up just like crazy these past couple weeks for sure. Is the Kyle Rittenhouse issue. You know, Kyle. Kyle being chased on the road, defending himself with his rifle, killing two and wounding a third. Big deal, guys. Now, without any commentary on what I think about him, right, wrong and different, anything like that is, I can justify that one in my mind. Right? I look at that and I go, well, I'm not going to go to a protest or a riot with an AR15 slung across my chest. If I'm really that scared for my life, I'm just not going to go, probably. But then I go the other side, and I go, but wait a minute. Where all this tough talk about protecting ourselves and setting up for our rights, our liberties, and I'm just admitting I wouldn't even go do it. So I'm kind of torn on that one. I'll be honest with you there. So without getting into whether what he did or didn't, all I see now is, I see Self defense. I see justified self defense with the firearm. I also see a national spectacle. I also see somebody who likely does not have the money to withstand. I will not be surprised if it's at least a million dollars in illegal defense going to have to pay for. So we have amazing attorneys coming out of the woodwork, Lin Wood, offering pro bono support, which is awesome. But even at pro bono, there's expert witnesses, there's, you know, all sorts of investigators, all sorts of issues that are going to go on. And it might just be pro bono up to a certain amount until, you know, the attorneys are going broke. Spending a million dollars on stuff, who knows? Or maybe you won't get the attorney offering it for free. But regardless of the attorney's offering it for free, the attorney already has been posting stuff like, crazy about fundraising, where you can donate money to the cause, where you can do this, where you can raise money. I don't know about you guys, but I'm worried enough about this kind of thing happening, especially with how the firearms industry is being viewed and people with firearms and things like that, that my plan is not to hope that a powerful attorney offers to represent me for free and hope that there's a fundraiser that, you know, for example, GoFundMe doesn't shut down like they did, and they find some system for a fundraiser, and then a whole bunch of people give me money. That'd be awesome. Great. Thank you. I'd appreciate the support. But going into that as my plan, I think that's kind of like saying I don't concealed carry, because I assume that if I ever get into trouble, somebody else is going to be there with a gun to help me. I think as concealed carriers, we're types of people that try to take our own safety into our own hands and try and protect ourselves. So for me, I see all this stuff with Kyle Rittenhouse and I realize why everyone is finally getting Heck, it took me a while until recently. Why CCW insurance might be a good idea for some people is exactly like this. If this kind of thing happens, they could be covered, they can be taken care of, and they don't have to worry about the legal expenses now, whether you can afford it, whether you want to do it. Got it. Completely up to you. So I'll end it there. I'll let you guys go read the breakdown on the chart if you want to. I will. I even do some comparison articles. You know, I'll link those, too. So just the main article is the best CCW insurance, and I break down the top five companies and give you all this stuff in there. But then in the other articles, I just do reviews, the individual products. I even do some comparisons of who I rank number one and two, things like that. So if you've been thinking about it, hopefully I helped either talk you into it or out of it. So I don't want you wasting your money either and gave you some considerations to look for when you're checking it out. And maybe if you've been thinking about doing it and haven't done it yet, this might push you over the edge to finally jump and do it. Because there's plenty of things in my life I keep thinking about maybe doing someday, and I don't want it to be too late. So if that's you, don't let that be you. I hope you guys are awesome. I hope you're staying sane during these lockdowns. I hope this all ends soon. I know ammo is getting scarce. You can't get up there and practice very much, but I hope you practice whenever you can. At least dry fire. At least dry fire. That'll still make you guys better. All right. You guys are awesome. I appreciate everything you guys do. I appreciate your support. Take care and I'll talk to you next time.