City study 01

The errands that leave the driveway

The City of Roseville does not hedge about what the place is for. On its own economic-development pages the city states that Roseville is the region’s retail center, and it names the anchor: Westfield Galleria at Roseville, which the city calls one of the largest malls in northern California and where, by the city’s count, there are more than 240 stores. Across the street, the same page says, is Fountains at Roseville, offering an upscale shopping experience.

Around that center the same page counts what else the city offers. It counts Roseville’s 80+ parks and says the city sets aside land for parks and open space at more than triple the state average. It counts more than 40 miles of paved off-street trails winding through open space preserves and 100+ miles of bike lanes. It describes public transit throughout Roseville with express service into downtown Sacramento. And it describes a Mediterranean climate whose summers are warm, dry and predictable, with high temperatures averaging in the low 90s, against short winters whose daytime highs average in the 50s — a climate the city calls ideal for year-round outdoor activities.

What the trip carries that the parking lot cannot see

None of that decides anything about an individual address, and no page here suggests it does. What the city’s description does list is a great many places to go. The question that follows is not about an address at all: away from its own front door, a household is answerable to other people for what it damages and whom it injures, and that is what liability coverage is for.

California fixes the floor for that answer. The Department of Insurance states the statutory minimum as three separate limits — thirty thousand dollars for the death or injury of any one person, a total of sixty thousand for the death or injury of more than one person in any one accident, and fifteen thousand for damage to the property of other people. The Department is explicit that this coverage applies to injuries you cause to someone else, and equally explicit that liability coverage does not pay for injuries to you or the people in your household.

The sentence that follows the last dollar of a limit

Read the property-damage figure against a full parking structure and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable quickly. The Department answers the obvious follow-up question without softening it: if you cause an accident costing more than your liability limit, you will be responsible for any damage you cause beyond the limits purchased. Asked whether a household should carry more than the law requires, the Department says you may want higher limits, because in general the more assets you have, the more you could lose in a lawsuit, and it sends the question to an agent, broker, insurer or financial advisor rather than answering it for you.

That is the honest end of a shopping-trip story: nothing about the Galleria or the Fountains sets a price or a limit for anybody, and nobody can tell you from a map what your household should carry. The coverage that travels with the household is simply the one worth reading before a renewal rather than after a claim.