I’ve been asked this question a lot lately, and it kind of sums up my thoughts on liability. I’m an insurance agent, and I feel like a lot of people wonder if they owe a business or person something. A business owner can owe you money, as well as be liable for things that happen on their property. Someone can be liable for a car accident that causes you pain, if you’ve been in an accident yourself.
In the insurance world, a business may owe a person money, but it doesn’t really matter if the person owes you money because it’s all the same to the insurance company. Insurance companies don’t care about people. They care about how much money you pay, how often you come in, and how often you pay off. If they don’t recognize that there is a difference between a business and a person and you think something is owed to you, they will deny you.
Insurance companies are all about being able to charge a person for a damage to an accident, property, medical bills, etc. They dont care about people. They care about how much money you pay and how often you pay. Insurance companies dont care about the difference. They care about how much money you pay and how often you pay. The more money you get for your car, the more car insurance you have to pay. That is the difference between a business and a person.
So if you can’t pay your insurance company, then why bother with insurance at all? If you are legally obligated to pay a penalty, the penalty can be used as a bargaining chip to get you to pay a lesser amount at a later time. That is just a business model.
Companies dont care about the difference. They care about how much money you pay and how often you pay. The more money you get for your car, the more car insurance you have to pay. That is the difference between a business and a person.
If you think about it, there is no difference. If a business is legally obligated to pay an amount of money from a liability, then a person is legally obligated to pay an amount of money from a liability as well. It is in the bank account, in the check book, and every time you pay your bill, the money is in the account. A person is just a name on a check.
This is one of those things that comes down to personal preference. I always like to think the “responsible” person, like a business, is the one that will pay the bill. However, I’ve recently heard many people say that the “responsible” person, like a person, has to pay. I don’t really agree. If a person has to pay money, then the business has to pay money as well.
I see the same thing everywhere. I get paid in cash, at the end of the day I have to pay the bill in cash. Ive heard this from a lot of people, myself included. Its a lot easier to get the money than to pay the bill. Its like the person has to give up something, the business has to give up something. Its one of those things that is easy to get wrong.
This is where the liability/debt concept and the “if you pay me, I’ll just take it” philosophy completely get off the rails. If you pay someone, you have to give them something in return. The liability should be an expectation, not an obligation. In other words, you should expect a certain amount of money to be paid. And you should expect it to be paid. If it is not, then you have to deal with the consequences of not paying.
It is not a good thing to get a wrong idea about the liability concept. This is why the concept is so useful in the legal world. Many things are not legal, and often the legal system is not aware of the reality of these things. Some examples include the liability concept itself.